Jepilpilin ke Ejukaan
(Accomplishment Through Joint Effort)
The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) is a nation of about 60,000 people living on 29 coral atolls and 5 low-lying islands in the central Pacific. The RMI adopted its Constitution in 1979 and signed the Compact of Free Association with the United States in 1986. The RMI became a member of the United Nations in 1991.
The Marshall Islands sit atop ancient submerged volcanoes rising from the ocean floor, about halfway between Hawaii and Australia, north of Nauru and Kiribati, east of the Federated States of Micronesia, and south of the disputed U.S. territory of Wake Island The atolls and islands form two groups: the Ratak (sunrise) and the Ralik (sunset). The two island chains lie approximately parallel to one another, running northwest to southeast, comprising about 750,000 square miles (1,900,000 km2) of ocean but only about 70 square miles (180 km2) of land mass.
Micronesian colonists reached the Marshall Islands using canoes circa 2nd millennium BC, with inter-island navigation made possible using rebbelib (traditional stick charts).
Legislative power lies with the Nitijela. The upper house of Parliament, called the Council of Iroij, is an advisory body comprising twelve tribal chiefs. The executive branch consists of the President and the Presidential Cabinet, which consists of ten ministers appointed by the President with the approval of the Nitijela. In January 2016, senator Hilda Heine was elected by Parliament as the first female president of the Marshall Islands.
RMI has been a vocal leader on climate change. In 2013 RMI initiated the Majuro Declaration on Climate Change and was the spearhead of the High Ambition Coalition in negotiating the Paris Agreement in 2015.
The RMI government has asked USP to establish the Micronesian Center for Sustainable Transport to deliver its national program for transport decarbonisation. In so doing, we seek to act as a catalyst for regional transition. The government is represented on the MSCT Board by the Ministers of Education and Transport. The Marshall Islands plays a vital role in the international shipping industry. The Marshallese registry began operations in 1990, and is managed through a joint venture with International Registries, Inc., a US-based corporation that has offices in major shipping centers worldwide. As of 2017, the Marshallese ship registry was the second largest in the world, after that of Panama.
