Fiji will chair the 27th Governor’s Meeting of the Pacific Developing Member Countries of the Asian Development Bank when the ADB holds its next annual gathering in Japan next year.
The position of chair will be assumed by the Attorney-General and Minister for Finance, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, who has been attending the current 26th Governor’s Meeting in Frankfurt, Germany.
The A-G led a discussion by finance ministers of the ADB Pacific Member Countries on how they can gain better access to finance to build their resilience to the extreme weather events and rising sea levels caused by climate change.
The AG stressed the need for climate financing to be mainstreamed into all development financing including national budgets.
The AG called for Pacific Island countries to collaborate on formulating bankable projects to build resilience and access funding.
He said that because island nations were relatively small and had limited economic bases, they needed to work closely together to confront the challenge of climate change.