REMARKS: Remarks by Hon. Mosese Bulitavu, at Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF) Partners Roundtable Talanoa

Excellencies, colleagues, and friends — bula vinaka.

What we have heard today is more than a discussion — it is the voice of a region that has decided to take its future into its own hands. The Pacific Resilience Facility was born from that conviction — that our people deserve a financing system that sees them, hears them, and reaches them.

For decades, our communities have waited at the end of long, complicated chains of funding — watching promises rise and fall with every COP. But this time is different. The PRF is not an appeal for sympathy; it is a declaration of self-determination. It is the Pacific saying to the world: we will not stand by while the tides rise —we will rise with them.

In just one year, we have turned an idea into a Treaty — signed by our Leaders, embraced by our people, and backed by growing international support. The PRF will soon become a legal financial institution of its own — built by the Pacific, for the Pacific, to deliver small grants at scale directly to our villages, our farmers, our women’s groups, our youth — those who live resilience every single day.

We have secured US $167 million — a strong foundation. But we need more. We need the world to stand with us now — governments, development partners, philanthropies, and private investors — to help us reach our first capitalisation goal of US $500 million by 2026.
Every dollar invested in the PRF will not just build infrastructure — it will build hope. It will rebuild homes, protect coastlines, keep children in schools, restore mangroves, and secure the dignity of those who have done the least to cause this crisis but face its harshest realities.

This is what true climate justice looks like. The Pacific has done its part — we have built the vessel. Now we ask our partners to help us fill its sails.
Let us leave Belem with one clear message — that the PRF is not a dream for tomorrow; it is the Pacific’s gift to the world today.
Together, let us invest in our people, in our resilience, and in our shared humanity.

Vinaka vakalevu, and tagio tumas