Policy review – water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and climate change in urban planning systems in Melanesia

This document summarises a policy and legislation review conducted as part of the Water for Women funded research project conducted by the International WaterCentre (IWC), The University of the South Pacific (USP) and their partners. The overarching research question for this work is How can urban planning processes in Melanesia be strengthened through participation and integration to improve the resilience of WASH service delivery in informal settlements and areas identified for housing growth within the urban footprint? The sub-question this document intends to contribute towards is to: Understand what existing planning processes (knowledge, information systems/platforms, plans and policies) are in place for future and existing areas of growth and informal settlements. Following a broad overview of urban planning in Melanesia, this document is structured by city (Port Moresby, Suva, Port Vila and Honiara). The policy and legislative review attempted to collect the central documents for each of the following themes – urban planning, WASH, and climate change, as well as any overarching strategy or policy for development in the country of relevance. Fifty-eight (58) documents were reviewed across the four cities (Figure 1). In the following sections, those documents are briefly described, and then specific review of the main urban planning document for the city is reviewed using separate lenses of WASH; climate change; and informal settlements. Each of the documents was designated as (1) strategy, policy or implementation plan, (2) town planning scheme or urban development plan or (3) legislation or regulation; and further classified in terms of the dominant theme, as (1) cross-cutting (e.g., national sustainable development plans, (2) water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and water resource management (WRM), (3) urban development or planning and (4) climate change. A comparison of terminology using a pairwise word search in each of the four thematic groupings was conducted to assess the integration of these themes within across documents. In addition to the review of documents, stakeholder interviews with key informants were conducted in Suva (Fiji) and Port Vila (Vanuatu) to better understand the current urban planning, WASH and climate change landscape in those cities. Interviews were conducted with water utilities (3), national government department officials (5), and local government officials (2)