Pacific

Overview

Our support to the Pacific focuses on reducing poverty and improving livelihoods in agriculture, forestry and fisheries with Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

The ACIAR regional strategy focuses on projects in biosecurity, climate resilient livelihoods, and opportunities for stronger agribusiness development in fisheries, forestry, crops and soil and land management. Read more about our Papua New Guinea Country Office.

Pacific priorities

Improving food and nutritional security due to the high prevalence of nutrition-related diseases.
Understanding and addressing the impacts of climate change on food systems resilience and livelihood security.
Strengthening regional biosecurity through trade protocols and individual and institutional capacity.
Enabling inter-country collaboration through regional projects, capacity-building, and supporting a stronger forum for exchange of ideas and experiences.
Implementing a long-term capacity-building program targeted at building skills in the sciences related to agriculture.

Active projects by program area

Mitigating the incidence of Ciguatera Poisoning in Kiribati

FIS/2023/161

Improving peri-urban and remote inland fish farming in Papua New Guinea to benefit both community-based and commercial operators

FIS/2018/154

Maintaining momentum within the pearl livelihoods sector in the western Pacific

FIS/2022/168

Towards more profitable and sustainable mabé pearl and shell-based livelihoods in the western Pacific

FIS/2019/122

Coalitions for change in sustainable national CBFM programs in the Pacific

FIS/2020/172

Innovating fish-based livelihoods in the community economies of Timor-Leste and Solomon Islands

FIS/2019/124

Regional manager

Mai Alagcan, ACIAR Manager of the Pacific Region

Ms Mai (Gay Maureen) Alagcan

Contact

Mai is based in Suva, Fiji. Before joining the Pacific Office, Mai was Country Manager for ACIAR in the Philippines. Prior to joining ACIAR, Mai was the Senior Program Officer for Disaster Risk Reduction and Humanitarian Program with DFAT at the Australian Embassy in Manila. Mai has also worked in the Philippine public sector, with extensive professional and management experience on program development, policy analysis and monitoring and evaluation in the agriculture and fisheries sector. Mai has a Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Economics from the University of the Philippines and postgraduate certificate in Regional Development Planning from the University of the Philippines and Technical University of Dortmund in Germany.