UN pledges $25M to help Fiji prepare for disasters

Fiji will receive about $25 million for early warning systems starting next year, a United Nations (UN) official announced yesterday.

UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Pacific head Gabrielle Emery said the funding under the Early Warning for All initiative would strengthen the country’s disaster preparedness.

“There’s going to be an injection of almost $25 million into early warning systems for Fiji kicking off from next year under the Early Warning for All initiative,” Ms Emery said.

She spoke to the Fiji Sun after a media briefing marking the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction at Kadavu House in Suva yesterday. She said the challenge was ensuring the systems and funding reached communities so people could take action on early warnings.

“We need to make sure that those systems and funding really can ensure that communities take action on early warnings,” she said.

She said the focus was on getting financing down to community level where it was needed most.

“The people here are very resilient, they know what to do to take their own action, often they just need those resources so that they can work in their families and communities to make sure they’re better prepared.”

Ms Emery said Fiji and Pacific Island countries were not receiving sufficient financing to tackle their adaptation and resilience needs.

She stressed disaster risk reduction need to be integrated across all development priorities rather than treated as a separate issue.

“We talked about allocating budget and national budgets for risk reduction and making sure that those budgets are also allocated really importantly for community level action,” Ms Emery added.