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Vanuatu reviews disaster response following cyclone Pam

Monday, 29 June 2015 13:27 administrator
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One hundred days since tropical cyclone Pam swept through the Pacific, the Government of Vanuatu is reviewing its disaster response arrangements.

A Lessons Learnt Workshop, hosted by the National Disaster Management Office, will take place in Port Vila on 24 to 25 June to inform the development and implementation of improved procedures for disaster management in Vanuatu.

The workshop is funded by the European Union as part of the Building Safety and Resilience in the Pacific Project, an initiative implemented by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC).

It will examine the coordination, early warning, information management, logistics and assessments that took place in the immediate aftermath of tropical cyclone Pam – all essential discussion topics following a disaster event of this magnitude.

In addition, the organisers are keen to understand how the response operations addressed issues relating to the different needs of different groups, protection and displacement.

These topics are particularly important as they relate to how the national arrangements met the needs of approximately 65,000 people who were displaced by the cyclone.

The Lessons Learnt Workshop will involve representatives of the Government of Vanuatu, SPC, civil society organisations, faith-based groups, non-governmental organisations, the European Union, United Nations agencies, regional organisations and the private sector.

The National Disaster Management Office hopes the workshop will provide partners with the opportunity to discuss the challenges faced during the response to tropical cyclone Pam, highlight areas of strength that can be built upon and help to develop practical solutions to include in work plans to support effective future disaster response.

The involvement of SPC is an opportunity to obtain feedback on its technical support role in the areas of food security, health surveillance, post disaster impact assessments and coordination support.

The objective of the ACP-EU ‘Building Safety and Resilience in the Pacific’ project is to reduce the vulnerability, as well as the social, economic and environmental costs of disasters caused by natural hazards, thereby achieving regional and national sustainable development and poverty reduction goals in 15 Pacific countries of the Africa Caribbean Pacific (ACP) group of states.
Caption: Restoring public health surveillance systems after cyclone Pam, as shown here in a health clinic in Tanna in April, is among the topics to be covered at the lessons learned workshop this week.
Photo: Paul White/SPC
Last Updated on Monday, 29 June 2015 14:19  

Newsflash

Distinguished Guests, and Colleagues,

It is with much pleasure as Director of the SOPAC Division of the SPC that I present to you this morning the Keynote Address for this Conference, the largest of its kind in the region and which was set up to showcase new tools and concepts for improved data collection, capabilities and analysis in GIS and Remote Sensing. At the same time I would like to acknowledge Dr Jimmie Rodgers the Director General of the SPC who is unable to be here today and he gives his apologies.

Firstly, however it would be remiss of me if I did not take this opportunity to welcome all of you here this morning to the Opening of this Conference, and in particular I extend a welcome to all representatives of island governments and administrations, donor partner representatives, representatives of CROP organisations, educationalists, scientists and technologists from other stakeholder groups including NGOs. In particular I would like to highlight the many representatives from the private sector, including satellite data providers, image resellers, software and hardware companies. We have gathered here in the room a genuine mix of providers, developers and users.

Secondly, I would like to acknowledge that I have been privileged to address this conference over recent years and in that context I would like to acknowledge that having something different to say has never been difficult. GIS and Remote Sensing is one of the fastest developing technologies no matter whether you are a provider, and developer or a user.

On the global agenda the outcome of Rio+20 this year "The Future We Want" contains a particular paragraph of relevance:
274. We recognize the importance of space-technology-based data, in situ monitoring, and reliable geospatial information for sustainable development policy-making, programming and project operations.

And here in the region and for the benefit of Pacific island countries and territories we are all striving to stay at the "cutting edge of the technology."  In this regard the theme of this Conference focusing on mapping Pacific resources is very timely.