United States Peace Corps chief executive officer Carol Spahn said here Thursday that the Philippines is among the first countries to implement its new climate initiative.

Spahn said around 40 coastal resource management volunteers will be working with the government next year to identify and implement strategies on climate change adaptation.

“Every person, every volunteer has a role to play in supporting climate change initiatives. This can be through education, teaching of students as we’re working with youth, and really enabling them to support their own communities, as well as through coastal resource management, which is very more directly impacting climate change,” she said in a press conference.

The US Peace Corps announced its climate initiative last month, which targets to deploy 1,000 Peace Corps volunteers in 50 countries to serve 2 million hours of volunteer work related to climate change adaptation.

Philippine National Volunteer Service Coordinating Agency (PNVSCA) executive director Donald James Gawe said among the areas where the climate initiative of the US Peace Corps will be rolled out include Pangasinan extending up to Ilocos Norte.

“During the bilateral meetings, this is where we set the areas and we have criteria in choosing the areas. Aside from (they are) broadly (in) Luzon and Visayas, we use criteria such as incidence of poverty as well as these are areas vulnerable to climate change and disaster risk,” Gawe added.

This is the first time that Spahn visited the Philippines as the US Peace Corps celebrated its 61st anniversary in the country.

Spahn said the Philippines is one of the first countries that the agency has partnered with since its inception in 1961.

For the past six decades, over 9,300 Peace Corps volunteers have been deployed in the country to work alongside communities and the government to achieve development priorities. (PNA)