---
title: "Science and technology in Pacific Island countries"
chunk: 4/6
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_Pacific_Island_countries"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:38:13.011932+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

==== Research and development ====
The National Vision 2050 was adopted in 2009. It has led to the establishment of the Research, Science and Technology Council. At its gathering in November 2014, the Council re-emphasized the need to focus on sustainable development through science and technology.
Vision 2050’s medium-term priorities are:

emerging industrial technology for downstream processing;
infrastructure technology for the economic corridors;
knowledge-based technology;
Science and engineering education; and
to reach the target of investing 5% of GDP in R&D by 2050.
By 2016, the share of GDP invested in research and development measured just 0.03%.
Between 2008 and 2014, 82% of scientific articles from Papua New Guinea concerned the biological and medical sciences.  Less than 10% of the country's 517 articles catalogued in Thomson Reuters' Web of Science (Science Citation Index Expanded) focused on geosciences.
In 2016, women represented 33.2% of the scientists in Papua New Guinea, on par with the global share.
Professor Teatulohi Matainaho serves as Chief Science Advisor to Papua New Guinea, appointed in 2013.

== Sustainable development ==

=== Disaster resilience ===
Countries around the Pacific Rim are seeking ways to link their national knowledge base to regional and global advances in science. One motivation for this greater interconnectedness is the region's vulnerability to geohazards such as earthquakes and tsunamis – the Pacific Rim is not known as the Ring of Fire for nothing. In 2009, Samoa suffered a submarine earthquake of a magnitude of 8.1 on the Richter Scale, the strongest earthquake recorded that year. The subsequent tsunami caused substantial damage and loss of life in Samoa, American Samoa, and Tonga.
The need for greater disaster resilience is inciting countries to develop collaboration in the geosciences.

=== Climate change ===
Climate change is a parallel concern, as the Pacific Rim is also one of the most vulnerable regions to rising sea levels and increasingly capricious weather patterns. In March 2015, for instance, much of Vanuatu was flattened by Cyclone Pam.
Climate change seems to be the most pressing environmental issue for Pacific Island countries, as it is already affecting almost all socio-economic sectors. The consequences of climate change can be seen in agriculture, food security, forestry and even in the spread of communicable diseases. Climate change mostly concerns marine issues, such as the growing frequency and severity of storms, rising sea levels and the increased salinity of soils and groundwater.
The Secretariat of the Pacific Community has initiated several activities to tackle problems associated with climate change. These cover a great variety of areas, including fisheries, freshwater, agriculture, coastal zone management, disaster management, energy, traditional knowledge, education, forestry, communication, tourism, culture, health, weather, gender implications and biodiversity. Almost all Pacific Island countries are involved in one or more of these activities.
The Seventh Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting with Japan in 2015 pledged to establish a Pacific Climate Change Centre. Construction of the centre was completed in Apia, Samoa, in 2019. A shared regional asset, the centre has four mutually reinforcing functions: knowledge brokerage; applied research; capacity-building; and innovation to promote climate change adaptation and mitigation. The government of Samoa, the Pacific Regional Environment Programme and the Japan International Cooperation Agency are all collaborating to deliver 12 courses for trainees from all Pacific Island countries and territories by 2022. The centre also houses a research node of Australia's University of Newcastle in partnership with the Pacific Regional Environment Programme; it has offered PhD scholarships since 2018 and hosts an ‘innovation incubator’. Research undertaken at the centre aligns with the four priority areas defined by the Pacific leaders, namely: climate change resilience; ecosystems and biodiversity protection; waste management; and environmental governance.

==== Pacific Adaptation to Climate Change ====
The first major scheme focusing on adaptation to climate change and climate variability dates back to 2009. Pacific Adaptation to Climate Change involves 13 Pacific Island nations, with international funding from the Global Environment Facility, as well as from the US and Australian governments.

==== Secretariat of the Pacific Region Environment Programme ====
Several projects related to climate change are also being co-ordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme, within the Secretariat of the Pacific Region Environmental Programme (SPREP). The aim of SPREP is to help all members improve their ‘capacity to respond to climate change through policy improvement, implementation of practical adaptation measures, enhancing ecosystem resilience to the impacts of climate change and implementing initiatives aimed at achieving low-carbon development’.

=== Samoa Pathway ===
The blueprint for the subregion's sustainable development over the coming decade is the Samoa Pathway, the action plan adopted by countries at the third United Nations Conference on Small Island Developing States in Apia (Samoa) in September 2014. The Samoa Pathway focuses on, inter alia, sustainable consumption and production; sustainable energy, tourism and transportation; climate change; disaster risk reduction; forests; water and sanitation, food security and nutrition; chemical and waste management; oceans and seas; biodiversity; desertification, land degradation and drought; and health and non-communicable diseases.[1]

=== Forestry ===
Forestry is an important economic resource for Fiji and Papua New Guinea. However, forestry in both countries uses low and semi-intensive technological inputs. As a result, product ranges are limited to sawed timber, veneer, plywood, block board, moulding, poles and posts and wood chips. Only a few limited finished products are exported. Lack of automated machinery, coupled with inadequately trained local technical personnel, are some of the obstacles to introducing automated machinery and design. Policy-makers need to turn their attention to eliminating these barriers, in order for forestry to make a more efficient and sustainable contribution to national economic development.