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

Evaluating carbon markets as a pathway to establishing climate resilient coffee agroforestry systems in Papua New Guinea

CLIM/2024/101

Supporting greenhouse gas inventories and livestock data development in Fiji

CLIM/2021/160

Scoping the governance and co-benefits of circular food-energy systems in Pacific Islands Countries

CLIM/2022/174

Transformation pathways for Pacific coastal food systems

CLIM/2020/178

Sustainable agricultural intensification systems for climate resilient development in Pacific island countries

CLIM/2020/186

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.