Vanuatu: A flagship for the world

Vanuatu, often referred to as a Small Island Developing State due to its limited land area spread across 80
islands, is, in reality, a Large Ocean State with more than 680,000 km2 (larger than the Ukraine) of the Pacific
Ocean within its Exclusive Economic Zone. Its vast size and isolation, combined with high levels of poverty,
compound its climate vulnerability and thus make it more difficult to adapt to climate impacts. These impacts
include higher temperatures on both land and at sea, volatile precipitation patterns, sea-level rise, and greater
exposure to violent cyclones.1 2 All of these patterns will become more extreme over the coming decades,
leading to erosion of arable land along the coast, destruction of infrastructure, intrusion of ocean water into
agricultural areas and freshwater sources, coral reef bleaching and subsequent impacts on fish stocks, and,
perhaps most importantly for an isolated Large Ocean State, a reduction in water quantity and quality.3 4

Climate adaptation is then quite literally a question of survival for citizens of Vanuatu. And, because water
is the major connecting element between the land and the sea, with rivers transporting drinking water,
pollutants and sedimentation to coastal areas while the ocean rises and strips away the coast or seeps into
freshwater supplies and farms, Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is essential for ensuring
adaptation efforts produce immediate and long-term tangible benefits for the population’s health, and food
and livelihood security.

Indeed, Vanuatu has already seized on this fact, explicitly including IWRM in its National Adaptation Plan of
Action (NAPA) as a priority project to reduce vulnerability to climate change across the nation’s watersheds.5
Similarly, the country’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) integrates water management across
sectors and focal areas such as forestry, gender and health, among others, citing a need for “natural resource
related measures to protect climate vulnerable urban water supplies [e.g., watershed restoration],”6 which are
dependent almost entirely on limited aquifers vulnerable to seawater contamination.7

1 https://www.gfdrr.org/en/publication/climate-risk-and-adaptation-country-profile-vanuatu

2 https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/country/vanuatu/vulnerability#:~:text=According%20to%20a%201998%20
Commonwealth,earthquakes%2C%20tsunamis%2C%20and%20cyclones.

3 https://www.gfdrr.org/en/publication/climate-risk-and-adaptation-country-profile-vanuatu

4 https://www.adaptation-undp.org/projects/bf-pacc-vanuatu

5 See page 52: https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/napa/vut01.pdf

6 See page 60: https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/NDC/2022-08/Vanuatu%20NDC%20Revised%20and%20Enhanced.pdf

7 file:///C:/Users/pc/Downloads/VUT_UNHabitat_2015_PVVA_FullReport.pdf
Recent initiatives have also contributed to the and Covid-19 arose during the project, slowing
policy framework and enabling environment needed implementation progress.
for IWRM, including the GEF-LDCF funded Vanuatu
Coastal Adaptation Project (now in Phase II), Despite those challenges, Vanuatu continues to
which indicated freshwater supplies as a major move forward, building on its IWRM experiences
climate-related concern and therefore a priority with the new “SIDS Ecosystem Restoration Flagship
for its adaptation measures. In focusing on water, Project (SIDS Flagship)” as part of the UN Decade on
the project also sought to “increase the efficiency Ecosystem Restoration. The SIDS Flagship project,
of agriculture and fisheries, food and water with the help of innovative finance mechanisms,12
management at the local level; and improve inter- will link coastal and marine restoration initiatives
institutional coordination and local governance via further R2R and seascape management
capacity,”8 while identifying key entry points for mainstreaming, aiming to close inefficiency-
water conservation in various sectors and how producing gaps stemming from conventional,
ecosystem restoration can contribute to more siloed resource governance approaches focusing
reliable water supplies. on only one ecosystem or sector at a time.13 For
example, the project emphasizes a “Blue Recovery” to
Additionally, the recent “Integrated Sustainable rebound from the pandemic, engaging stakeholders
Land and Coastal Management” project promoted at key target sites for linking R2R and seascape
“the integrated management of watersheds planning and management, and developing public-
and associated landscapes in four main project private partnerships to scale up restoration efforts.
localities [Maskelyne islands, North Efate, Mystery Importantly, the project recognizes Vanuatu’s
Island and Tongoa] in such a way as to deliver dependence on tourism (ranging between 30% to 40%
multifocal […] benefits,”9 built on a 2009 regional of the economy, before the Covid-19 pandemic),14
Ridge-to-Reef (R2R) programme’s efforts which and focuses on the industry’s role in R2R and
laid the foundations for future IWRM work.10 R2R seascape management, emphasizing training for
management recognizes the fundamental yet decision-makers, dive shops, cruise lines, and hotels
often overlooked fact that, via the force, flow, and to integrate watershed, coastal, and mangrove (i.e.,
chemistry of water, the ocean is linked to the land, the ecosystems stretching from ridges to reefs)
and, conversely, the land to the ocean, so human protection and restoration into development and
activities in one area will affect the other. And, business planning, respectively.15
given the importance of water for the country, this
integrative project helped begin mainstreaming R2R- Whether explicitly stated or embedded within the
related policies across various economic sectors terminology of R2R management or other resource
and in environmental planning processes while also governance principles, IWRM features prominently
initiating the development and implementation of in Vanuatu’s climate change adaptation and
R2R management plans for 100,000 hectares of development planning, and, in a way, reflects a return
land.11 Unfortunately, several challenges such as a to pre-colonial customary law, which understood
volcanic eruption, extremely destructive cyclone, reefs to be extensions of the land.16 In this light,

8 See page 53: https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/ 12 The project will explore applicability of (Blue) carbon credits,
document/funding-proposal-fp184.pdf biodiversity banking, PES for coastal protection, etc.

9 https://www.thegef.org/projects-operations/projects/5397: See 13 https://www.nab.vu/project/sids-ecosystem-restoration-flagship-

Project Document, page 2. vanuatu-comores-and-santa-lucia

10 This project was part of and build on a regional programme titled 14 https://www.worlddata.info/oceania/vanuatu/tourism.php
“Pacific Islands Ridge-to-Reef National Priorities: Integrated Water,
Land, Forest and Coastal Management to Preserve Biodiversity, 15 https://www.nab.vu/sites/default/files/documents/NAB%20SOP%20
Ecosystem Services, Store Carbon, Improve Climate Resilience and Project%20profile%20form%20final_FAO_SIDS.pdf
Sustain Livelihoods” that began in 2009. It focused heavily on IWRM,
establishing a water advisory council, flood management plan, and 16 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259453003_
general training related to water management for communities up Traditional_Marine_Management_Areas_of_the_Pacific_in_
to cabinet members. See: https://www.pacific-r2r.org/sites/default/ the_Context_of_National_and_International_Law_and_Policy/
files/2020-03/Vanuatu.pdf link/54be3bcb0cf218d4a16a558a/download

11 https://www.thegef.org/projects-operations/projects/5397: See FAO-

GEF Project Implementation Report, pages 6-7.
Vanuatu could truly be considered a flagship for
the rest of the world to emulate, starting with the
following key takeaways:
1. Integrating customary knowledge and resource
governance traditions into modern, science-based
protected area management can not only enhance
ecosystem restoration and conservation but also
build the necessary stakeholder buy-in and long-
term cooperation crucial to ensuring that those
ecosystems contribute to adaptation needs.
2. In some countries, climate impacts are already so
dire that IWRM/R2R/adaptation projects’ design
should take into consideration the fact that their
project activities could themselves be affected
directly or indirectly by a climate-induced disaster.
For example, tropical cyclone Harold, while
not directly causing damage to the Integrated
Sustainable Land and Coastal Management
project’s equipment or interventions, forced its 18

team to focus its resources and time on disaster

response and recovery instead of watershed
management and R2R implementation for the
prevention of water-related disasters.
3. Finally, R2R and IWRM, as silo-breaking and
beneficial as they are in the long term, do
require major initial investments in coordination
and role setting in the short term to avoid
confusion and misestimations regarding,
respectively, responsibilities and related partner
implementation capacities. Project design must
make realistic estimates of time and financing
needed for coordination and role setting.17

For more information, contact Head of Freshwater Unit,

Elisabeth Bernhardt, lis.bernhardt@un.org

17 https://www.thegef.org/projects-operations/projects/5397: 18 Adapted from: https://www.pacific-r2r.org/sites/default/

See Mid-term Review files/2020-03/Vanuatu.pdf