Our Objectives
Our initiative is focused on creating lasting and meaningful improvements in island communities by strengthening sustainable development, improving local planning and service delivery, and increasing resilience to the growing impacts of climate change.
At the heart of our work are two core objectives that guide our activities and define the results we aim to achieve.
1. Strengthen the capabilities of island councils for risk-informed land development planning and basic infrastructure and service delivery
Island councils play a vital role in guiding development and ensuring that communities have access to essential infrastructure and services. Strengthening their capacity is therefore critical to achieving sustainable and resilient development across the islands.
This objective focuses on supporting island councils to make better-informed decisions about how land is used, developed, and managed. Risk-informed planning means considering existing and future risks—particularly those associated with climate change, natural hazards, coastal erosion, flooding, sea-level rise, and other environmental pressures—before development decisions are made.
By strengthening planning knowledge, technical skills, institutional capacity, and decision-making processes, island councils will be better equipped to identify suitable areas for development, reduce exposure to hazards, protect important community assets, and guide future growth in a safer and more sustainable manner.
The objective also places strong emphasis on improving the planning, management, and delivery of basic infrastructure and essential services. This includes helping island councils better identify community priorities, plan investments, manage public assets, coordinate development activities, and ensure that infrastructure and services respond to the actual needs of island communities.
Through stronger local capacity, island councils can take greater responsibility for managing development, maintaining essential infrastructure, and ensuring that investments continue to provide long-term benefits to their communities.
2. Strengthen the climate resilience of vulnerable communities
Island communities are increasingly exposed to the impacts of climate change, including coastal erosion, sea-level rise, flooding, drought, stronger weather events, changing rainfall patterns, and pressure on freshwater resources, livelihoods, infrastructure, and essential services.
This objective focuses on strengthening the ability of vulnerable communities to prepare for, respond to, recover from, and adapt to these challenges.
Building climate resilience means supporting communities to better understand the risks they face and ensuring that development decisions, infrastructure investments, and local planning take these risks into account. It also means reducing vulnerability by strengthening infrastructure, improving access to essential services, protecting community assets, and supporting practical measures that can withstand changing climate conditions.
Particular attention is given to communities that are most exposed to climate-related hazards and have limited resources or capacity to respond to them. By addressing these vulnerabilities, the initiative aims to improve community safety, protect livelihoods, reduce disruption to essential services, and strengthen long-term well-being.
Climate resilience is not only about responding to disasters when they occur. It is about planning ahead, reducing risks before they become emergencies, and ensuring that communities are better prepared for future environmental and climate-related challenges.
Together, these two objectives reinforce one another. Stronger island councils can make better development and investment decisions, while more resilient communities are better able to withstand and adapt to climate-related risks.
Through these objectives, our initiative seeks to create stronger local institutions, safer communities, better-managed development, and more resilient island environments. The ultimate goal is to ensure that development taking place today continues to benefit island communities well into the future while protecting people, infrastructure, livelihoods, and essential services from increasing climate and disaster risks.
