Regional Research-Practice-Policy Partnerships in Response to Climate-Related Disparities: Promoting Health Equity in the Pacific.

Although climate change poses a threat to health and well-being globally, a regional approach to addressing climate-related health equity may be more suitable, appropriate, and appealing to under-resourced communities and countries. In support of this argument, this commentary describes an approach by a network of researchers, practitioners, and policymakers dedicated to promoting climate-related health equity in Small Island Developing States and low- and middle-income countries in the Pacific. We identify three primary sets of needs related to developing a regional capacity to address physical and mental health disparities through research, training, and assistance in policy and practice implementation: (1) limited healthcare facilities and qualified medical and mental health providers; (2) addressing the social impacts related to the cooccurrence of natural hazards, disease outbreaks, and complex emergencies; and (3) building the response capacity and resilience to climate-related extreme weather events and natural hazards.

Aid fragmentation and volatility in the Pacific.

In this article we comprehensively document aid volatility (short-term changes in aid flows) and aid fragmentation in the Pacific. We study two types of fragmentation: fragmentation across countries and fragmentation across projects. Our research draws on a new dataset compiled by the Lowy Institute. The dataset includes aid flows to the Pacific from non-traditional donors such as China. This allows us to undertake the first-ever study of Pacific aid volatility and fragmentation factoring in non-traditional donors. We contrast the Pacific with other regions, finding that while fragmentation across donors is less in the Pacific, project fragmentation is worse, as is aid volatility. We find fragmentation across donors is increasing in the Pacific. We find a similar trend for fragmentation across projects. We find no evidence that non-traditional donors such as China are driving these trends. However, we find some evidence that non-traditional donors give more volatile aid.