PAVE-Health: Pacific Action to enhance the Visibility of Evidence on Health and Climate Impacts

The Pacific is a climate change hotspot, facing substantial climate-related threats to physical and mental health. Yet health remains largely invisible in climate-related policies. Fortunately, many Pacific Island Countries (PICs) are already engaged in climate resilient development, including through traditional knowledges and action. There is now an urgency for knowledge of climate-related health impacts to be incorporated into national and international policy. The PAVE-Health intervention will unlock critical resources - financial, human and technical - for PICs to address and make visible current and future climate-related health risks, which is critical to access climate finance. The outcomes of the PAVE-Health project are to: build local capacity to generate evidence on the health impacts of climate change;  ensure local evidence is policy-relevant, via conduct or revision of Health Vulnerability and Capacity Assessments (VCAs) that underpin National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and their health-specific components; and  enable the use of this knowledge generation, capacity development and engagement to access global climate finance. The project is led by a strong, collaborative, transdisciplinary team at the Pacific Climate Change Centre (Samoa) and University of Melbourne (Australia). Enhancing PIC's access to resources will pave the way for a healthier, more climate-resilient Pacific region.