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Footprints - Newsletter of the Pacific Disaster Risk Management Partnership Network

Tuesday, 15 June 2010 15:30 administrator
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Bula Vinaka and Welcome to Footprints – the official newsletter of the Pacific Disaster Risk Management Partnership Network. Since reintroducing the newsletter in the last quarter of 2007, we have ‘reinvented’ the publication in an effort to be more reader-friendly in 2010. The changes include a new layout. The title reflects the collective ‘steps’ taken by the partners, working with Pacific island country representatives, toward achieving the desired outcomes of the Pacific Disaster Risk Reduction and Disaster Management Framework for Action 2005-2015.In taking each step we leave behind ‘footprints’ as a record of where we have been, what we have done and what we have accomplished. I invite all partners to contribute regularly to Footprints.
Mosese Sikivou
Programme Manager - Community Risk

IN THIS ISSUE

  • Next Round of Progress Reporting against the Hyogo Framework for Action
  • Launch of the biennial progress review of the Pacific DRR & DM Framework for Action and the HFA
  • Integrating Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation in the Pacific
  • Update on Tsunami Capacity Assessments and follow on projects for Pacific island countries
  • Building Back Better
  • The Pacific Humanitarian Team and the Regional Cluster approach
  • Pacific-Caribbean? dialogue on disaster risk management for small islands
  • Scientists gather information for disaster preparedness
  • Review of the Palau National Disaster Risk Management Framework 2010
  • Domestic Legal Preparedness for Foreign Disaster Assistance in the Pacific
  • UNDP delivers Early Recovery Training for UNDP staff and Government counterparts
  • Seeking Post-Disaster? Indirect and Intangible Loss Indicators
  • Standardisation of the Samoa fire fighting fleet

Read Full Issue Here

Last Updated on Sunday, 20 June 2010 12:09  

Newsflash

Dr. Russell Howorth has been elected Chairman of the Legal and Technical Commission of the International Seabed Authority (ISA).

With the election of Dr. Howorth, the Pacific continues to play a prominent role at ISA; its President, Peter Thomson, is Fiji’s permanent representative to the United Nations, while ISA’s first Secretary General, Satya Nand, is a former Fiji Ambassador.  Dr. Howorth is the Director of SOPAC, a division of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC).

ISA was established by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and currently has 162 member states. It is an autonomous international organization, to which state parties to the Convention are given the responsibility of organising, controlling and administering the resources of the international seabed beyond the limits of national jurisdiction.

In his capacity as chairman of the Legal and Technical Commission, Dr. Howorth presides over a 25-member council that is entrusted with functions relating to activities in the international seabed.

Included in these are the review of applications for plans of work, supervision of exploration or mining activities and the assessment of the environmental impact of such activities.

The Commission also provides advice to the International Seabed Authority’s Assembly and Council on all matters relating to exploration and exploitation of non-living marine resources (such as polymetallic [manganese] nodules, polymetallic (sulphides and cobalt crusts).

While Dr. Howorth’s term on the Legal and Technical Commission is for five years, his chairmanship is for the coming year.