The UNESCO Office in Apia, Samoa, serves sixteen independent countries and one territory in the Pacific from Papua New Guinea in the West, the Republic of the Marshall Islands in the North, to the Cook Islands in the East and New Zealand in the South (cluster of the Pacific States).
The UNESCO Office in Apia was opened in September 1984 and served as an Education Office to support six the Pacific Member States including Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Tonga. By 1995, Pacific membership had increased to thirteen and programme work had expanded to cover Culture, Natural Sciences and Communication and Information. The process continued and by 2005 all independent Pacific nations had joined UNESCO. Programme work also increased to include Social and Human Sciences.
