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• Past Interventions
• Current Issues for Nauru
• Programme Response

The effective social and economic development of Pacific Communities is dependent on three essential inputs, namely energy, water and information and communication technologies. The Community Lifelines Programme aims to improve the Pacific Communities’ access to these essential inputs.

To achieve this in Nauru, SOPAC has provided assistance in response to specific requests and through a number of general regional initiatives. A summary of these activities and initiatives is provided below:

Past Interventions

Initiatives completed for Nauru that relate to the Community Lifelines Programme involved assistance in the development of the water, energy, and information and communication technology sectors.

One of the first initiatives conducted in Nauru was through a field visit in 1998 to assess their freshwater sources. The water sources were established and steps for further development charted. The steps included a review of the existing literature on the water resources of Nauru, development of a drought index, and an estimated cost of a pipeline water reticulation system to circle the island.

The existing National Energy Demand/Supply Database of Nauru was also modified. The database was constructed for all Pacific Island Countries to enable them to source, record and store energy data for developing their policies and made available to donors and other regional organization. Modifications to the Nauru Energy database was carried out by SOPAC to reduce complexity, minimise workload in collecting/inputting data and be more user friendly. One other assistance to the Nauru government has been towards the preparations of it’s National Communication under the framework of UNFCC.

Finally, assistance was also provided for the information and communication technologies sector. The Nauru Internet Service Provider [ISP] was upgraded by SOPAC’s IT sector as well as the establishment of a big picture network. A number of proposals for the establishment of a local area network for the Government of Nauru were constructed by SOPAC. However changes to the government of Nauru and their choice of alternative funding sources deterred these proposals from eventuating (Allinson, 2000).

Current Issues for Nauru

Within the context of the three pillars of sustainable development, there are a number of critical issues that have been identified by Nauru through national and regional mechanisms. Many of these issues are critical in relation to the achievement of Nauru’s longer-term vision and fall within the work programme component areas of the Community Lifelines Programme. In terms of the globally recognised pillars of sustainability, namely environmental, economic and social issues, the relevant identified key issues and concerns are summarised below:

• Large energy cost of water desalination and water delivery.
• Need for an integrated strategy for water conservation and supply.
• Collection and storage of rainwater is a top priority.
• Long-term potential threats to the quality of the groundwater resource, such as contamination by cadmium, rubbish dump leachate, sewage, and phosphate dust from the loading process that settles on nearby roofs and is washed into storage tanks.
• Raw sewage discharge over the reef.
• Pollution of toxic chemicals.
• Inadequate and poorly managed sewerage system.

Programme Response

Tackling these issues requires a pragmatic approach from FSM’s partners, such as SOPAC. The Community Lifelines Programme provides assistance through both regional projects and specific activities that respond to individual country requests. SOPAC’s programme is designed to cut across all their member countries. These tasks main components being:

• The continual assessment of wind development and energy resources, the provision of technical assistance and training of staff in this area, and the provision and maintenance of a database which will assist the decision making and capacity building of concerned and relevant human resources ;
• The development of energy resources that incorporate new and related technologies, the improvement of community access to and awareness of these energy resources, in order to ensure sustainable management ;
• The development of cost effective and suitable technology such as Geographic Information Systems GIS and Remote Sensing on spatial data for the region that is accessible for relevant stakeholders, regionally and internationally; the development of intranet and internet technologies; relevant support to the government departments concerned, and ensuring the accuracy of available data ;
• The provision of technical advice on water and sanitation in the region, its proper management and awareness of waste management; the development of strategies that will reduce member islands’ vulnerability to drought ;
• The review of existing policy and legislation in water, energy and relevant information and communication technologies that relate to SOPAC work programmes; representation of Pacific concerns at global forums, and the coordination of regional action plans in these areas .

These regional components are executed at national level in Nauru. Currently these are:

• Energy Conservation Project to reduce the energy consumption in Government Offices .
• To carry out an energy and electricity demand side survey for the domestic and commercial sectors of Nauru .
• To prepare a Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report for Nauru
• Drafting of their National Energy Policy statement and guidelines .