Page 10 - Snapshot 86

Basic HTML Version

10
Snapshot 86
TRAINING, TRAINING, TRAINING
Building capacity for resilient development
Emergency shelter and evacuation centre training for Samoa
Despite recognition of the importance of disaster
resilient approaches to development, many countries
face challenges in identifying ways to effectively
mainstream risk reduction considerations into
national development planning processes. To address
this, the SPC in partnership with the Asian Disaster
Preparedness Centre held a one-week training
workshop which focussed on how to mainstream DRR
into development.
The training, held in Nadi from 14-18 July,
included participants from the Cook Islands, Fiji,
Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu with
representatives of NDMOs and ministries responsible
for national planning and finance. Representatives
from the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS), SPC,
SPREP and United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) also participated in this training workshop.
A mixture of theory, case studies and exercises were
used to increase participants’ knowledge and skills
in areas such as risk assessment, understanding the
links between development and disasters, selecting
appropriate risk reduction options and identifying
and entry points to mainstream risk reduction in
development. The training workshop further builds
on capacities of government planning officials in the
Pacific region to plan and implement disaster resilient
development through enhancing their understanding
of the integration of DRR considerations in the
development planning process.
Participants in Emergency Structures Training
Eighteen representatives of Samoa’s Welfare and
Internally-Displaced People Sub-Committee of the
Disaster Advisory Committee attended a training
course in Emergency Shelter Cluster and Evacuation
Centre Management facilitated by the SPC and the
International FederationofRedCrossandRedCrescent
Societies (IFRC) with the Disaster Management Office
and Samoa Red Cross Society.
The training is the first of its kind in the Pacific Island
region and is part of the Disaster Management Office’s
commitment to improve the quality of emergency
response in Samoa. The training was supported by
the BSRP project and the European Commission’s
Humanitarian Aid and Civil protection department
(ECHO).
The training provided participants with an
understanding of the shelter needs of people affected
by disasters and how national and international
systems can work together to meet those needs.
These can range from providing temporary shelter
during and immediately after a disaster in evacuation
centres, to providing support to repair damaged
homes to fully reconstructing homes destroyed by
a disaster. The training also provided the necessary
knowledge and skills to select, maintain and manage
evacuation centres.