SPC Geoscience Division

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Community Based DRM

Sunday, 27 June 2010 16:18 administrator
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Navua training

To minimise the scale of impact and improve on the ground disaster recovery, there is a need to increase community awareness and preparedness programmes, and promote engagement and ownership of ground-level initiatives in DRM and CCA. Involving the community in DRM and CCA is crucial to enhancing resilience particularly in small island countries in the region.

Whilst the bulk of the Disaster Reduction Programme’s work focuses on building national DRM capacity, DRP also has a strong commitment to supporting community based disaster risk management initiatives.

 

Navua launch

 

DRP in partnership with UNDP, NDMO, Fiji Red Cross and Live and Learn are working with communities on the Navua floodplain on reducing their risk to flooding.  The project has brought together local government and the community to improve flood response which included the installation of a flood warning system in Navua.  A flood response plan was developed and Community-based First Aid and Disaster Preparedness Workshops in Serua and Namosi Province carried out in support of this.

Specific services that the Disaster Risk Programme can provide in relation to Community based Disaster Risk  Management are the following:

  • Training support and facilitation of Vulnerability and Capacity Assessments  (VCA)
  • Community based Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Response Planning
  • Particapatory Community based Disaster Risk Reduction Planning
  • Documentation of traditional practices and protocol in Pacific Island countries and territories
  • Advise on integration into national disaster risk management systems

For more information, contact:

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Adviser Community based Disaster Risk Management


Last Updated on Wednesday, 16 February 2011 12:07  


Newsflash

Local pilots play an important role in the safe passage of container ships and other large vessels into and out of Pacific ports. Foreign shipmasters rely on pilots for their local knowledge of depths, currents, locations of wrecks, reefs, navigation aids, and other potential obstacles. And now, updated oceanographic studies of Suva Harbour’s sea floor and currents are being used to localise and improve a computer-simulated training for ships’ pilots in the Pacific region.

A recent collaboration between two divisions – the Economic Development Division (EDD) and the Applied Geoscience and Technology (SOPAC) Division – of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) has produced the first simulation of a Pacific Island port.

According to SPC Shipping Advisor John Rounds, the computerised simulator is a critical training tool because it can test a pilot’s ship-handling competence under a variety of challenging wind and sea conditions without the expenditure and risk of practising on actual vessels. ‘It’s like a blown up computer game,’ he says.