The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is ready to inject $100 million into the Pacific Islands over the next three years, says Chief Executive Officer of GEF Monique Barbut.

Ms. Barbut was in Samoa this week to attend the first days of the 18th Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) Annual Meeting in order to discuss with the Pacific Islands the big programme that will be going ahead.

Up until now the GEF has not been very active in the Pacific with only $90 million spent here in the past 50 years however the company is becoming more involved now and will be helping the Pacific with areas such as climate change and biodiversity.

The threat to the Islands is very high says Ms Barbut and GEF has promised to have a big presence here over the next three years.

“Over the next three years we will be as present here as much as the last 50 years.”

According to Ms. Barbut, GEF will be financing projects for water, land and waste management and also biodiversity.

This includes protection of reefs, marines, fisheries, forests, mitigation, renewable energy and how Pacific Islands can adapt to climate change.

She says the main area in which Samoa needs to focus on is the water management, however, she was very shocked at the way Samoa has already been putting campaigns into place in order to help all of these areas.

“The Samoan people are very aware,” she explained, “I was very surprised to see how well the island is maintained.”

She also noted though that Samoa is very lucky because of the high lands, however, she says the challenge for Samoa is to be sure that infrastructure is being built that will be able to sustain the effects of climate change.

In regards to the water management side of things that Ms. Barbut believes Samoa needs to focus on she says Samoa needs to improve how they source their water and improve the amount of rainfall that is collected and the quality of drinking water.

She says there will be a number of different programmes in Samoa over the next three years.

One of the important things about the projects is that it will give work to the people of Samoa and empower them, says Ms. Barbut.

GEF will also be focusing projects on finding different ways for renewable energy to be formulated and used in Samoa as it is good for saving money.

Ms. Barbut has been working as CEO for GEF for one year now and prior to that she was the Minister of Finance in her homeland of France.

A cocktail party was held in her honour on Tuesday night by the United Nations Resident Coordinator for Samoa, Ms. Naheed Haque.

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