Disaster rehabilitation [1]
Thursday, December 20, 2001 - 11:00. Updated on Thursday, February 11, 2016 - 17:50.
From Matangi Tonga Magazine, Vol. 16, no. 3, December 2001.
Mr P. J. Ijben, the Chairman of the Foundation for European Development Assistance, Luxembourg, visited Tonga in early November.
Mr Ijben’s interest is in the area of rehabilitation from different kinds of disasters, such as earthquakes, bush fires and other natural disasters.
Before coming to Tonga he attended a workshop in Nadi on Capacity Building within Civil Societies. He said that the workshop was attended by various organisations such as AusAid, NZODA, the EU and representatives from the Northern Pacific.
Mr Ijben said they planned to make this kind of meeting an annual gathering to coincide with the Pacific Forum annual conference. He said that his organisation would set up an office in Suva in January 2002.
He was here a few years ago on a project to rehabilitate Tongan bees, which had been destroyed by a species of wild bees, but unfortunately they did not achieve the objective of that project and he said that problem was still here today.