"A New Direction for Regional Disaster Management Capacity Building – Keeping Step with Changing Times" - 20th Regional Disaster Managers Meeting

Annual Meeting of the Heads of National Disaster Management Offices of Pacific Island Countries and Territories

5th – 6th June 2014, Novotel Hotel, Suva, Fiji

KEY OUTCOMES

The 20th Regional Disaster Managers Meeting was convened jointly by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs at the Novotel Hotel, in Suva, Fiji on 5th - 6th June 2014.

Representatives of National Disaster Management Offices from Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Timor Leste, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Wallis & Futuna were in attendance. Also in attendance were representatives of Act for Peace, Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade (DFAT), CARE International, European Union (EU), Fiji Red Cross, Foundation of the Peoples of the South Pacific International (FSPI), GNS Science, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), International Organisation for Migration (IOM), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), New Zealand Ministry of Civil Defense & Emergency Management, Oxfam, United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Development Program (UNDP), United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) and UN Women. See Annex 1 for participant list.

The purpose of the meeting was to provide NDMOs the opportunity to consider recent developments and to articulate specific capacity building priorities in ‘disaster management’ (disaster preparedness and response) for the medium term. The objectives of the meeting were to:

  1. Provide participants with an opportunity to share and learn from recent national experiences in disaster response

  2. Identify the areas of preparedness and response in which NDMOs require specific training and capacity building support over the medium term, and identify suitable activities to address these needs.

  3. Develop a ‘roadmap’ for capacity building activities for the next 12 months, identifying areas of cross-fertilization between NDMOs (in line with the PHT Position Statement);

  4. Determine a way forward for the draft DRM Competency Framework for the Pacific;

  5. Guide the future implementation of the EDF10 ACP-EU Project: Building the Safety & Resilience of the Pacific;

The meeting was chaired by Mr. Keu Mataroa, Manager, Regional Programs & Disaster Risk Management Coordination, Ministry of Infrastructure Planning, Government of the Cook Islands.

The Meeting acknowledged the progress made towards the implementation of the 19th Regional Disaster Managers Meeting’s outcomes, and reaffirmed NDMOs continuing leadership role in DRM, collaboration with humanitarian agencies, community based organisations and development partners in coordinating response and recovery and the need for national meteorological, hydrological and disaster management offices to work together to strengthen early warning systems. Progress toward the development of the Strategy for Climate and Disaster Resilient Development in the Pacific (SRDP) and implementation of the EDF 10 ACP-EU BSRP was also noted by the Meeting.

Additionally, the Meeting noted internal changes taking place within SPC with respect to DRM (and Climate Change) and the delivery of future support to PICTs. In particular, they noted the establishment of a new unit in SPC headquarters to coordinate all of SPC’s DRM and Climate Change capacity building activities, as well to provide a higher profile for these cross-cutting development issues across all functional divisions in the organisation. The Meeting was informed that the new DRM and Climate Change unit in SPC will be part of a cross-programmatic approach to delivering priorities to PICTs and that given the integration of DRM and Climate Change within SPC the range of DRM capacity building services currently delivered by the Applied Geoscience & Technology Division may change in the future.

The Meeting requested SPC to keep NDMOs and partner organisations appraised of all such developments in the future.