Since the earliest voyages across the Blue Pacific, Pacific Island communities have drawn on rich and diverse value systems to guide relationships among people, place, and the wider world. Traditions such as honouring relational space and practising restraint have supported regenerative ways of living, reflecting a belief held in many communities that genuine peace emerges from sustaining the wellbeing of the whole. 

The Pacific is a region shaped by two world wars, nuclear testing, territorial contestation and the often-unresolved legacies of colonisation. Meanwhile, geopolitics, economic pressures, and climatic disruptions are converging and bringing new waves of tension.  

This speaks to a core Pacific truth: simultaneous yet opposing forces are part of life. The Pacific is both a deeply peaceful region and a site of conflict and competition. Accepting and embracing this mutual contradiction will help foster a new paradigm of peace and security in the Pacific.   

It is this understanding of peace and security that Pacific leaders formalised when they adopted the Blue Pacific Ocean of Peace Declaration in September this year. The Declaration defines peace in Pacific terms – grounded in sovereignty and consistent with Pacific values, interests and collective aspirations.  

The UN Development Programme (UNDP) is working in partnership with Pacific Island Countries to strengthen peacebuilding, climate resilience, and oceans governance – contributing towards a peaceful region, on Pacific terms.   

Healing, Dialogue and Sovereignty as Building Blocks of Peace 

Peace requires functioning institutions and trusted authorities, equitable development pathways, and populations secure in their culture and spirituality.  

Through the Solomon Islands Peace Building Fund Project, UNDP has helped address key peacebuilding challenges following the withdrawal of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) in 2017, including resolving land disputes, advancing legislation necessary for peace and reconciliation, and establishing Provincial Women’s Caucuses to institutionalise women’s participation in decision-making. Recognising that peacebuilding does not happen overnight, the project will continue for a second phase.  

Peacebuilding also requires truth-telling and healing. It is through acknowledging and processing trauma – through local, regional and global mechanisms – that individuals, communities and nations can transform pain and suffering into collective wellbeing. In Fiji, UNDP is partnering with the Fiji Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and developing a robust social cohesion architecture to advance national reconciliation and peacebuilding efforts. This paves the way for enhanced accountability and trust among communities and between citizens and their governments – important precursors for peace.  

Peace and security also depend on the responsible use of technology and innovation, including the sharing of information, technology and resources between Pacific Island Countries. UNDP is committed to facilitating responsiveness, equity and digital literacy at all levels of government for modernised service delivery.  

Climate Security as Sacred Kinship  

In the Pacific, peace and security can be understood through a Pasifika relational italugi (worldview) in which people, land and ocean form an interconnected whole, where there is no distinction between the physical and the spiritual worlds. Climate pressures such as rising sea, coastal erosion and intensifying extreme weather events are threats to peace and security because they disrupt the continuity of relationships, identity and culture. These changes unsettle the social and cultural fabric that sustains community cohesion.  

Community wellbeing and lasting peace and security therefore depend on the health of the land and ocean and the relationships that bind people to them. Understanding that climate adaptation is a sacred act of kinship in the Pacific, UNDP is working in partnership with Pacific Island Countries to build creative and holistic adaptation strategies. For example, the Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation (TCAP) Project has achieved 15.3 hectares of raised, flood-free land in the capital of Funafuti, which enables Tuvaluans to uphold their connection to place. We are starting a bold new chapter in partnership with the Government of Tuvalu to envision and plan for climate-safe settlement patterns beyond the year 2100, and we stand ready to support additional Pacific Island Countries in their visions.  

Ocean Custodianship and Protecting the Commons  

Pacific peoples are custodians of nearly 20 percent of the earth’s surface. The vast Pacific Ocean is not just a provider of resources and a connector of peoples, it is the very lifeblood of the Pacific. However, the Pacific Ocean is increasingly exposed to complex and violent threats such as illegal fishing, transnational crime, and drug trafficking. 

In partnership with Pacific governments, UNDP is strengthening maritime governance frameworks and reducing illegal fishing, and is ready to scale-up support for Exclusive Economic Zone management through blending modern technologies with traditional knowledge.  

A safe and healthy ocean is foundational to lasting peace in the Pacific – helping promote sovereignty and honouring identity.     

No Security without Spiritual Security: Shaping Peaceful Pasifika Futures Grounded in Ancestral Wisdom  

Lasting peace requires nurturing life in its wholeness. Relationships, ecology and cosmology are not cultural “add-ons” but core parts of the living system that sustains balance and harmony.  

UNDP is committed to combining innovation and foresight with Pasifika wisdom to co-design development initiatives that are locally-grounded and uniquely Pasifika. Working in close partnership with governments, CROP agencies, traditional leaders, communities, youth, academia, civil society, and private sector, UNDP stands ready to support the implementation of the Ocean of Peace Declaration.  

Together, we can co-create a Pacific where communities live in balance and harmony, ecology is protected, past traumas are healed, and oceans are free from harm – in the Pacific Way. We all have a role to play in ensuring that the beauty and bounty of the Pacific remain the heritage of future generations, enjoyed in peace.