Tonga Climate Change Adaptation Media Training and Launching of Portal

On March 27, 2021, at Davina House, Chief Executive Officer Paula Ma’u of the Ministry of Meteorology, Energy, Information, Disaster Management, Environment, Climate Change and Communications (MEIDECC) officially opened and launched the Department of Climate Change’s portal.

Ma’u formally welcomed donor partners live streaming from overseas. This included local partners from Tonga Broadcasting and participants from line ministries, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and the private sector who participated to gain knowledge and build their capacity for interacting with the media.

The portal was successfully launched and distributed to all the participants. It offers a range of climate change information, such as Department of Climate Change documents, projects, donors, policies, bills, legislation, plans, and awareness activities that have been implemented within the Department.

This workshop aimed to provide an opportunity to refine messaging, which participants were asked to prepare ahead of time. Government participants drafted key messages containing important points about climate change adaptation and the Tonga Joint National Action Plan (JNAP) II in order to practice how these messages will be delivered in an interview setting with journalists.

“Prioritizing resilient development as one of the key national objectives for Tonga, the Joint National Action Plan II was created as a necessary document to propel the country towards integrating climate change and disaster risk management both into every level of development planning as well as into the execution of programs and activities,” Ma’u stated.

With the 2019 implementation of the JNAP II monitoring and evaluation system, a strong foundation was laid for mainstreaming climate change and disaster risk management. The cooperation between international partners, government line ministries, and several NGOs built this foundation. Therefore, these stakeholders have stepped up their contributions to focal points in Tonga’s network in order to begin this mainstreaming.

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This workshop took place with funding from the NDC Partnership Climate Action Enhancement Package (CAEP) implemented by the NAP Global Network Secretariat, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), in collaboration with the Department of Climate Change.