Four more Emergency Opera­tion Centres (EOC) are in the planning process to be es­tablished around the country this year.

This is part of the Building Safety and Resilience in the Pacific (BSRP) Project, which is currently being undertaken to improve natural dis­aster preparedness.

“The aim of the project is to re­duce the vulnerability, and the so­cial, economic and environmental costs of disasters caused by natural hazards, achieving regional and national sustainable development and poverty alleviation in African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group of States (ACP),” a statement from the Pacific Commission said.

“Through the lessons learnt from Tropical Cyclone Winston, the BSRP project identified a need to decentralise disaster coordination to ensure effective preparedness and response.

“For the past years, the BSRP Pro­ject has worked with the Fiji Na­tional Disaster Management Office to establish three EOC’s around the country, and four more are in the planning process to be established.”

This is part of the FJ$ 47.3 million ACP-EU Building Safety and Resil­ience in the Pacific project (BSRP) funded by the EU and implemented by the Pacific Commission (SPC).

According to SPC, in the face of Tropical Cyclone Gita, the EOC’s established in Lautoka and Nadi were able to mobilise and coordi­nate disaster preparedness efforts.

Although Cyclone Gita did not make landfall in Fiji, the response from the EOC’s indicates a positive improvement on the national disas­ter preparedness.

Meanwhile, Assistant Minister of Agriculture and Natural Dis­aster Management Joeli Cawaki, will officiate at the refurbished Ta­vua Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) tomorrow which is funded by the European Union through the Building Safety and Resilience in the Pacific (BSRP) Project.

Edited by Mohammed Zulfikar