The Government’s new Green Growth Programme and the challenges of climate change have been discussed at a top-level meeting in Suva.

The meeting was between the Attorney-General and Minister for Finance, Aiyaz Sayed- Khaiyum, and a representative of the German aid organization, GIZ – the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit.

The representative, Dr Wulf Killmann, is the Programme Director of the joint project that GIZ has formed with the Secretariat of the Pacific Community to assist regional governments to cope with the impact of climate change.

Dr Killmann briefed the A-G on the nature of the SPC/GIZ projects in Fiji and the region in light of the fact that the Green Growth Programme is being implemented by the Ministry of Finance and the Department of National Planning.

The A-G stressed that both the Green Growth agenda on sustainable development and the challenges of climate change were inextricably linked, cut across the whole of Government and required a holistic and comprehensive approach.

He welcomed the joint SPC-German programme to assist the region to address the climate change issue and said Fiji welcomed further collaboration with GIZ, which is a German state-owned entity that specialises in international development.