The focus of this work is to ensure that Pacific Islands waterways and sea passages are safe to navigate by domestic and international vessels resulting in safety of lives at sea, prevention of marine pollution and minimising the impact of maritime transport on the pristine ecosystem. Furthermore, an underlying objective of the project is to ensure that remote islands are well connected with an active and timely supply chain of much needed medical supplies, goods and services and facilitation of international and domestic trade is on-going which is a critical economic driver for the region.
The Pacific Safety of Navigation Project currently in Phase 3 has been running since July 2016 under the Implementation Agreement between SPC and International Foundation of Aids to Navigation (IFAN). This partnership has resulted in a lot of positive benefits including risk assessments carried out in target countries, capacity building programs including trainings such as the International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities (IALA) level 1 Aids to to Navigation (AtoN) Manager trainings, in-country technical trainings on AtoN maintenance and maritime safety information, AtoN infrastructure development, AtoN regulation and policy development and economic sustainability initiatives.
The Pacific Safety of Navigation Project has key result areas which focuses on sustainability and derived from other Pacific Community's (SPC) overarching plans and objectives to deliver resilient infrastructures which are adaptable to climate change. Moreover, the result areas take into consideration international rules and standards of harmonizing aids to navigation wit a focus of mitigating risks depending on the volume of traffic underscored in international protocols such as the SOLAS Convention.
