Tuvalu’s low-lying atoll islands are among the most vulnerable in the world to sea level rise and the impacts of climate change. In 2015, large waves caused by Tropical Cyclone Pam flooded multiple islands, displacing 45 percent of the nation’s population. In 2020, Tropical Cyclone Tino caused yet more devastation.  

Recognising this severe threat to marine communities, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Pacific Community (SPC) as a scientific and technical organisation, have partnered to provide training to improve Tuvalu’s resilience to coastal flooding under the Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project (TCAP). The project is funded by the Green Climate Fund, with contributions from Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Government of Tuvalu, implemented by UNDP in close consultation with local communities.  

In 2024, training took place to improve the use of tools and awareness to measure shoreline change analysis, and support gender mainstreaming approaches and capacity building to strengthen risk assessments. A diverse range of participants have built skills in disaster and climate risk information, and in the use of tools that can inform development planning or financing decisions and ensure consistency in data collection methods across the Pacific.  

Mapping the island shorelines and collecting data

Historically, Tuvalu has very limited data with which to track climate impacts and changes over time. These training opportunities aim to equip the local community with the ability to make sound, risk-informed decisions about where to build and how to plan responses to climate impacts. Communities have been trained in general use of the hazard dashboard for example.

By capturing and tracking the shift of the nation’s shorelines in response to weather and climate conditions, storms, and human activities, it is possible to understand which areas may become more vulnerable to erosion, or to flooding in future. February’s training included representatives from the Departments of Climate Change, Land and Surveys, Education, People with Disabilities, Local Government and Meteorology.  

Davis Vaea Katea, from the Tuvalu National Disaster Management Office, related a particularly useful exercise in the assessment of evacuation shelters for every village. This involved creating a shapefile – a geospatial data format used in Geographic Information Systems to store location-based data – to digitise buildings and roads.  

“We used this toolbox app to do our assessment and data collection and saved our data. We found out that using these tools can really help us to make our work easier,” he said.  

Gender mainstreaming  

In April, TCAP’s people-centred approach and gender mainstreaming workshops were held to increase awareness on key human rights, gender, social inclusion concepts related to climate change. Participants included representatives from the Tuvalu Meteorological Service, the Departments of Education, Youth and Social Welfare, Gender Affairs, and Climate Change, as well as civil society representation from Tuvalu Women for Change, the FusiAlofa Association, the Tuvalu National Private Sector Organisation, the Tuvalu National Council of Women, and participants of the CIS-Pac5 Project.  

Sopoanga Saufatu, Capacity Development Associate for TCAP, said:  

“The training on integrating gender was an eye-opener, with participants understanding that gender needs to be mainstreamed into other thematic areas that the participants work on to ensure a sense of equality.”

Strengthening risk assessments

Training to strengthen risk assessment capacity took place in July, among a broad range of government bodies and organisations of Tuvalu – from meteorological, disaster management and public works departments to the Tuvalu National Council of Women and Tuvalu Red Cross Society.  

“The risk assessment tool can be used by different sectors of the community, so that they can have a good understanding and plan for future risks. For example, health risks, or infrastructure risks; risks to the fishing community and economic risks when disasters such as cyclones strike,” explained Saufatu.  

“Considerations like how water is managed in the community; how it is stored and how it is used especially during disasters is critical to understand. We also considered actions related to prior or post disaster-management; services that the community can expect to have delivered, and how services can be best delivered to communities,” he added.

From the Tuvalu Red Cross Society, Tautalo Lese who participated in the training, said:  

“The risk metrics for assessing community vulnerability across various sectors were particularly useful. For instance, the health clinic's proximity to the coast makes it highly vulnerable, suggesting it might need to be relocated to a safer area. We evaluated the risk for different sectors, including energy, education, agriculture, water security and food security, to determine the risk levels for most communities,” she observed.

The training will support the development of a new Island Strategic Plan to support communities and the government to better manage risks using both traditional knowledge, for example about how to detect approaching cyclones, merged with new technology to help communities identify, understand and plan for risks in future.