UNDP opened the Pacific Centre in Fiji in 2005 as its first knowledge centre focused on small Islands developing states in the Pacific. The Centre was established to maximize management efficiency in the delivering of a number of regional projects as well as provide technical and policy support to the national activities of the UNDP Country Offices in Suva, Samoa and Papua New Guinea. The Pacific Centre’s Regional Legislative Strengthening Expert, Ms Charmaine Rodrigues, sits within the Centre’s Governance Unit (GovPac).

Under the current Governance in the Pacific (GovPac) project, the Centre’s Pacific Parliamentary Programme is:

• Providing technical support to UNDP Country Offices, for example, in designing new legislative support projects and coordinating legislative needs analyses;
• Organising/supporting regional activities and to promote the integration of development issues, such as MDGs, gender budgeting, human rights and the like, into the work of Pacific legislatures;
• Collaborating on activities in support of increasing women’s representation in legislatures;
• Maintaining a Pacific regional webpage collecting legislative development resources;
• Supporting the consolidation of regional legislative networks, including through activities such as the Pacific Parliamentary Assistance Roundtable .