Fiji to chair top ADB Regional Meeting

Fiji will chair the 27th Governor’s Meeting of the Pacific Developing Member Countries of the Asian Development Bank when the ADB holds its next annual gathering in Japan next year.

The position of chair will be assumed by the Attorney General and Minister for Finance Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, who is currently attending the 26th Pacific Developing Member Countries Governor’s Meeting in Frankfurt, Germany.

Sayed-Khaiyum led a discussion by Finance Ministers of the ADB Pacific Member Countries on how they can gain better access to finance to build their resilience to the extreme weather events and rising sea levels caused by climate change.

He stressed the need for climate financing to be mainstreamed into all development financing including national budgets.

Sayed-Khaiyum says that because extreme weather events were likely to be more frequent and more intense, it is vital that all future infrastructure investments in the region be climate resilient.

He called for Pacific Island countries to collaborate on formulating bankable projects to build resilience and access funding.

There was general consensus among Pacific delegates that Fiji’s proposal was the appropriate way forward and Sayed-Khaiyum will chair the next gathering during the 50th ADB annual meeting in Yokohama, Japan, in 2017.