The Pacific Islands Private Sector Organisation (PIPSO) will be holding its Regional Capacity Building Training Sessions for PIPSO members at the Hexagon Hotel in Nadi.
This will take place from July 24 – 26.
The three-day workshop will be formally opened by Australian High Commission regional, political and economic development counsellor Matthew Lapworth.
Representatives from PIPSO’s 15 member countries are expected to be in attendance as well as representatives from various development partner organisations and donor agencies.
Regional capacity building for its members remains at the top of PIPSO’s strategic focus areas.
Through this, PIPSO hopes to empower its members on policy advocacy and regional policy making, Networking and mapping of National Private Sector Organisation (NPSO) opportunities and Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) with National Governments.
PIPSO has planned various group discussions in which its members will be engaged in to facilitate open dialogue between all relevant stakeholders.
PIPSO will also launch a Pacific Business Resilience Network on Tuesday 25th July 2017.
The Network will work to support businesses to build their resilience to climate change and disasters, and to strengthen their engagement in emergency preparedness, response and recovery efforts in collaboration with the government, and partners.
Membership of the Regional Network will be open to all NPSOs who are members of PIPSO.
The Network will promote a culture of risk management for businesses, provide tools, resources and peer-to-peer learning and exchanges between businesses (with a focus on SMEs) and councils from all Pacific countries.
The Network is a joint initiative of the Australian Government funded United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) Connecting Business initiative (CBi), and the Australian Government funded UNDP Pacific Risk Resilience Program (PRRP).
Another exciting initiative by UNDP and the Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) with PIPSO, is the setup of the Green Business Centre, a virtual platform designed to enhance initiatives, explore new business models being pioneered, and support best-practices on adaptation to improve climate and disaster resilience.
This digital crossroads on green initiatives will facilitate the networking between companies willing to invest in an ecological approach and gain from a green comparative advantage; stimulate the Private Sector (possibly even through incentives) to build a low-carbon, climate-resilient future.
The Business Centre will be a depository of information on green and climate financing and SDGs finance and to assist the Private sector in preparing funding proposals.
Participants at the event will also be trained on the newly launched Disaster-Ready Business Toolkit designed to support private before, during, and after disaster.
The toolkit was developed in partnership with The Pacific Community (SPC), PIPSO, and The Fiji Business Disaster Resilience Council (FBDRC) led by SPC’s Building Safety and Resilience in the Pacific Project and funded by the European Union and ACP Group of States.
The interactive toolkit is hosted on the PIPSO website (www.pipso.org.fj/stayopen) and is an informative resource kit outlining the impact of disaster on the private sector in the Pacific whilst providing simple tools to support the region in strengthening its disaster preparedness into the future.
(Source: Pacific Islands Private Sector Organisation [PIPSO] 20 July 2017)
