KOICA-Funded Project To Strengthen Disaster Response And Evacuation Center’s

Korea will provide US$6 mil­lion (about FJ$12 million) between 2022 and 2025 to fund the project, which will be led by International Organization for Migration (IOM) in partnership with the Save the Children Fiji and National Disaster Management Of­fice (NDMO).

The capacity of communities and national level authorities to re­spond to disasters will be strength­ened through improved disaster response systems, and the construc­tion of four evacuation centres and retrofit of existing shelters.

The Korea International Coopera­tion Agency (KOICA) will provide US$6 million between 2022 and 2025 to fund the project, which will be led by International Organization for Migration (IOM) in partnership with the Save the Children Fiji and National Disaster Management Of­fice (NDMO).

“The Korean Government is proud to support Fiji through KOICA to improve its national management responses, which will benefit the people of Fiji, wherever disasters occur,” said Ambassador of the Re­public of Korea to Fiji, Young-Kyu Park, at the event launch.

The project has two outcomes. Firstly, it will strengthen the Gov­ernment of Fiji’s ability to prevent, respond to and manage disaster and displacement risks.

IOM and NDMO will work togeth­er to develop a national evacuation centre management guideline.

This will ensure clear roles and responsibilities for community and government during crisis.

IOM will provide training on Evacuation Management and Com­munity-based Disaster Risk Man­agement, ensuring strong attention on gender and protection issues during emergencies.

NDMO’s information manage­ment systems will be updated so that Fiji can efficiently predict, un­derstand, and respond to humani­tarian needs data, and therefore respond quickly and effectively.

“IOM is the lead agency on the Evacuation Centre Management & Displacement (ECMD) cluster in the Pacific Humanitarian Team and has global expertise on issues related to displacement manage­ment in humanitarian contexts, so we look forward to working closely with NDMO in this project on im­proving national response proce­dures,” said IOM chief of mission in Fiji, Solomon Kantha.

The second outcome provides im­proved evacuation facilities and management processes in four lo­cations.

Evacuation centres will be built or refurbished in remote and high-risk locations.

The locations will be determined early in the project in coordination with NDMO, community and pro­vincial authorities.

The evacuation centres will be designed to serve as a venue for community activities, including for income generating activities for women.

“This project will provide a blue­print for future evacuation centre refurbishment and construction across Fiji. Multi-purpose evacu­ation centres will provide both protection and economic benefit to communities,” said NDMO direc­tor Vasiti Soko.

Community-based committees will be identified or established to oversee project activities, to de­velop Community-based Disaster Response Management Plans, and improve systems and training on preparedness, early warning sys­tems, and response.

This will include training on pro­tection for women and people with disabilities.

Save the Children Fiji chief ex­ecutive officer, Shairana Ali, noted that market vendor, financial, and social empowerment training and resources will be provided by Save the Children Fiji.

“We know that women’s empower­ment and collaborative community involvement are always critical to long-term resilience and to improve children’s well-being,” Ali said.