TARAWA / GENEVA (20 July 2012) – United Nations Special Rapporteur Catarina de Albuquerque continues her country missions in the Pacific and will visit Kiribati from 23 to 26 July 2012 to examine the situation of the human right to water and sanitation. Her mission will be the first ever to Kiribati by an independent expert of the UN Human Rights Council.

BANGKOK, 15 March 2012 - Following a recent decision by its Cabinet to buy land in Fiji as 'climate change insurance' for its population, Kiribati President, Anote Tong has called on the international community to address the effects of climate change that could wipe out the entire Pacific archipelago.

US$2 Million Food Crisis Response Grant to Support Government’s Import Levy Fund

HANOI, May 6, 2011 – The World Bank and the Government of Kiribati today signed an emergency US$2 million grant agreement that supports the Government’s Import Levy Fund (ILF). The Food Crisis Response Grant will help improve the affordability and availability of food for the 62,000 residents of Kiribati’s Outer Islands. Representatives of the Government of Kiribati and the World Bank were in Hanoi attending the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank.

I. Country Context

Kiribati (estimated population of 110,000) is a small, remote country comprised of 33 atolls and reef islands, of which 21 are permanently inhabited. The total land area is only 726 km2 spanning approximately 3.5 million km2 of ocean. About 43.5 percent of the population lives in South Tarawa. Of the remaining population, 46.8 percent live on the outer islands of the Gilbert Group, which includes North Tarawa, and 9.6 percent live in the Line and Phoenix Islands.

Kiribati has few land-based resources

An IFAD documentary "The President's Dilemma," at film festival in Copenhagen

Copenhagen and Rome, December 11, 2009 - One country that scientists predict will have disappeared under rising sea levels within the next 30-50 years is the island state of Kiribati.

Anote Tong is President of a small nation - a group of 33 atoll islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, half-way between Australia and Hawaii. Tong is faced with a dilemma the likes of which most government leaders couldn't image. Scientists predict that within

Executive summary

This brief has been prepared for the UN Convention on Climate Change meeting in Copenhagen, December 2009, to raise awareness of the imminent impacts of climate change on food security in Pacific island countries and territories and to urge participants to consider the importance of mainstreaming food security in climate-related policies, strategies and programmes.

By providing a snapshot of the imminent impacts of climate change on food security in Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs), this report illustrates the need to mainstream

Highlights

- 17 families left homeless in Kiribati and an undisclosed number of people displaced

- Early reports from FSM suggest some outer islands may have suffered from inundation

- International assistance has not been requested by any country

Situation overview

Around Tuesday 9 December, two regions of abnormally high sea levels, one over the Solomon Sea South of the New Britain Coast in PNG, and one over Guam waters north of the equator, appear to have been forced together by two tropical depressions.

Source - PNG National Weather Service

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Ref: OCHA/GVA - 99/0047
Kiribati - Drought
OCHA Situation Report No. 1
12 March 1999

1. According to preliminary information gathered by the UNDP's Disaster Management Programme-South Pacific Office (DMP-SPO), a drought has persisted in Kiribati for over a year. Kiribati is situated in the south Pacific Ocean, 2,000 km north of Fiji. Kiribati consists of three island groups, namely; the Gilbert Islands, the Line Islands and the Phoenix Islands. The population is approximately 84,000, and the national capital is Tarawa.

2. Current major impacts are on water