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Resilient urban development planning for Vanuatu

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Vanuatu participants

15 September 2015

Port Vila, Vanuatu – Increasing the climate and disaster resilience of urban development planning is the focus of a three day training being held in Port Vila this week (15-17 September) for representatives of national and municipal government.

As a country that experiences a range of natural disasters it is important that urban development in Vanuatu takes into consideration the risk of hazards such as flooding, earthquake and tsunami in order to reduce the impact of future disasters and create safer, more resilient towns and cities.

This is particularly important in the wake of major disasters such as Tropical Cyclone Pam which resulted in damage and losses of at least VT 48.6 billion (US$449.4 million), equivalent to 64.1% of Vanuatu’s Gross Domestic Product.

The training is facilitated by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) in partnership with New Zealand’s National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) with support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

During the training participants will be introduced to newly developed user-friendly tools that apply existing hazard and risk assessment information to support decision making in urban development planning.

Urban planners and infrastructure engineers will gain skills and knowledge to customise the new tools to Vanuatu’s context and then make risk-informed urban planning, mitigation and adaptation decisions leading to safer and more resilient urban environments.

Media contacts

Dr Kirstie Méheux, Senior Adviser – Disaster Risk Management Training and Professional Development, SPC, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or +678 549 5774 (in Vanuatu)

Mr Douglas Ramsay, Manager, Pacific Rim, NIWA, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Last Updated on Sunday, 20 September 2015 20:06  

Newsflash

The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) are pleased to announce the 2014 meeting of the Pacific Platform for Disaster Risk Management which will be held from 2nd – 4th June 2014 at the Novotel Hotel in Suva, Fiji. The Pacific Platform for Disaster Risk Management is the annual opportunity for Pacific island countries and territories, development partners and donors, civil society, private sector as well as other stakeholders to share experiences and knowledge in building the resilience of their communities to disasters. In addition, the SPC will also convene the 20th Regional Disaster Managers Meeting also at the Novotel Hotel from 5th – 6th June 2014.

In 2011, the Pacific islands region agreed to develop a Strategy for Climate and Disaster Resilient Development in the Pacific (SRDP) by 2015 to succeed the Pacific Disaster Risk Reduction and Disaster Management Framework for Action 2005 – 2015 and Pacific Islands Framework for Action on Climate Change 2006 – 2015. The new strategy will provide a new approach on how to efficiently address DRM and Climate Change within the context of risk resilient development. The process of developing this new strategy has become known as the ‘Roadmap’.