WELLINGTON, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- Responding to island leaders' calls for a greater onsite presence, the United Nations will establish its first local offices in eight Pacific island nations during the next year, including in the north Pacific area.

    According to Friday's report from Pacnews, a Suva-based regional news agency, Marshall Islands, Palau and Federated States of Micronesia had earlier asked the United Nations to step up its presence in the north Pacific, which has never had a U.N. office.

    In response, U.N. agencies would be establishing offices in Majuro, Pohnpei and Koror shortly, according to Najib Assifi, the United Nations Population Fund's (UNFPA) representative for the Pacific who is based in Fiji, the headquarters for most of the UN agencies active in the region.

    UNFPA is taking responsibility for establishing the Majuro and Pohnpei offices, but is doing so in partnership with the United Nations Development Program and UNICEF, the U.N. Children's Fund, said Assifi.

    "The move to establish field offices in the region is part of broader reforms within the U.N system," said Assifi.

    UNICEF is taking the lead to establish offices in Kiribati and Vanuatu, while UNDP is moving ahead to establish offices in Palau, Tuvalu and Nauru.

    Each office would represent the three U.N. agencies. A bigger office for the three agencies will be established in the Solomon Islands, he said.

    The plans to open these offices still have bureaucratic hurdles to leap. But once a letter from U.N. headquarters is sent and "the governments respond, we're ready to come," said Assifi.

    He said UNFPA intends to initially hire two local staff to run the Majuro and Pohnpei offices. Enditem