SUVA, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- Fiji's Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum met on Wednesday with visiting Officer-in-Charge of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) Hongjoo Hahm and discussed areas in which Fiji could play a more active leadership role in the Pacific region.
According to a press release by the Fijian Department of Information, looking to a more resilient and sustainable future for Fiji and its Pacific neighbors, the two leaders spoke of the importance of climate financing for the region.
Praising the Fijian government for the issue of its widely-acclaimed sovereign green bonds, Hahm said the UNESCAP will build on this success by exploring similar innovative financing instruments that could be developed for Fiji with a hope of creating a replicable model for other Pacific island nations.
In October 2017, Fiji became the first emerging market to issue a sovereign green bond, raising 100 million Fijian dollars (about 50 million U.S dollars) to support climate change mitigation and adaption.
Home to more than 880,000 people, Fiji's over 300 volcanic islands include low-lying atolls that are highly susceptible to cyclones and floods. In 2016, Tropical Cyclone Winston, the most intense tropical cyclone in the Southern Hemisphere on record, passed directly over Fiji, causing economic losses that amounted to almost one third of the country's Gross Domestic Product.
Green bonds are fixed income, liquid financial instruments that are used to raise funds dedicated to climate-mitigation, adaptation, and other environment-friendly projects. This provides investors an attractive investment proposition as well as an opportunity to support environmentally sound projects.
Khaiyum, who is also the Fijian minister for finance, outlined the island nation's plan to continue this progress, including through the Fijian government's partnership with the Singaporean government for Fiji's Digital Government Transformation.
The meeting served as a preview for later this year, when a team from UNESCAP will visit Fiji to further strengthen the organization's partnership with the country.
