Clean Pacific Roundtable History
The Clean Pacific Roundtable is the regional mechanism that empowers regional and national cooperation for the implementation of the Pacific Regional Waste and Pollution Management Strategy 2016-2025 (Cleaner Pacific 2025). Facilitated by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), with Members and partners, the biennial event is a major activity that aims to facilitate networking and dialogue, improve donor coordination, mobilise technical and financial resources and to develop monitoring and reporting methods to monitor progress of the Cleaner Pacific 2025.
2016 Clean Pacific Roundtable
Photo: First Clean Pacific Roundtable - SPREP
The inaugural event was held from 25 - 28 July 2016 in Suva Fiji. Coordinated by SPREP with financial assistance from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the European Union. Two major outcomes of the 2016 Clean Pacific Roundtable were the 2016 Clean Pacific Roundtable Outcomes Statement and the establishment of seven Technical Working Groups in areas which needed greater focus, namely: marine debris, green waste management, disaster waste management, regional recycling networking, waste collection systems, landfilling and human capacity development.
2018 Clean Pacific Roundtable
Photo: Second Clean Pacific Roundtable - SPREP
The Second Clean Pacific Roundtable was held from 20 – 22 August 2018 in Suva, Fiji, the theme of which was “Pathways to a Pollution-Free Pacific”. The event was organised by SPREP and Japanese Technical Cooperation Project for Promotion of Regional Initiative on Solid Waste Management in Pacific Island Countries Phase 2 (JPRISM2) in partnership with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), European Union (EU), and the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat.
Six sessions were conducted which included: coordinated actions to combat marine debris, responding to disaster wastes, enhancing proper management of hazardous wastes, regional coordination in recycling, boosting eco-tourism through proper waste management, and further enhancement of regional capacity in waste management. Valuable discussions strongly reflected the stakeholders’ views on sustaining proper management of waste and pollution.
The 2018 Clean Pacific Roundtable was held along with associated events which included an Information and Consultation Workshop on the Regional Waste Monitoring System, the EDF11 PacWaste Plus Project inception workshop, the JPRISM2 Steering Committee Meeting and the Marine Plastics and Microplastics Data Collection Training.
The 2018 Clean Pacific Roundtable Outcomes Statement was an outcome of the event.