Disaster Resilience Project includes 14 Pacific Is countries [1]
Thursday, October 20, 2016 - 17:43. Updated on Thursday, October 27, 2016 - 18:02.
A US$7.5 million Regional Disaster Resilience project, under a partnership between Russia and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) was launched on 17 October in Nadi. The Regional Disaster Resilience in the Pacific Small Island Developing States (RESPAC) Project will cover 14 countries including Tonga.
Other countries are Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and the territory of Tokelau.
Country-Director and Head of Regional Policy and Program at the UNDP Pacific Office in Fiji, Bakhodir Burkhanov said Pacific Small Island Developing States are among the most threatened by natural hazards such as cyclones, earthquakes, volcanoes, droughts and floods.
“The US$7.5m project will in the next three-years support countries in strengthening early warning systems and climate monitoring capacity, enhance preparedness and planning mechanisms and tools to manage disaster recovery processes, and increase the use of financial instruments to manage and share disaster related risk and fund post disaster recovery efforts."
Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Department of International Organisations Deputy Director, Dmitry Maksimychev said the project is an important part of their effort to implement the Sustainable Development Goals, the SIDS Agenda and also the Russian Government’s agenda to strengthen their relations with Asia and Pacific countries.
“So far this regional initiative is the single largest project funded by the Russian Federation as part of Russia-UNDP Trust Fund and therefore, we will spare no effort to make it a success. We expect, through the RESPAC Project, to be effective and make a real difference in the improvement of the level of resilience of the Pacific Small Islands Developing States.”
The project also held its first board meeting at the launch and discussed collaborative approaches to implementation and way forward with country representatives and partners.
The project is expected to complete its implementation by 2019.