Disaster Risk Reduction in Island Cities

The many development challenges faced by small islands are often worsened by frequent disasters. Thus, helping an island community to become more disaster-resilient can provide a pathway to strengthening other critical systems – food, energy, ecosystems, health, housing etc.

ICLEI works with the United Nations Disaster Office UNDRR to help refine and test self-assessment tools for cities to assess their disaster preparedness and plan disaster risk reduction strategies. ICLEI also encourages all island cities to join the UNDRR Making Cities Resilient Campaign.

Honiara and Port Vila

The many development challenges faced by small islands are often worsened by frequent disasters. Thus, helping an island community to become more disaster-resilient can provide a pathway to strengthening other critical systems – food, energy, ecosystems, health, housing etc. ICLEI works with the United Nations Disaster Office UNISDR to help refine and test self-assessment tools for cities to assess their disaster preparedness and plan disaster risk reduction strategies.

In 2015 and 2016  ICLEI  assisted Honiara and Port Vila to undertake DRR self-assessments.  In 2018 ICLEI Oceania then received a grant from the EU DEVCO “Making Cities Sustainable and Resilient” project to extend the DRR planning in Honiara and help to develop a comprehensive disaster action plan. In 2019 ICLEI then received a grant from the Australian Government to conduct further planning between Honiara City and several vulnerable communities, to help them develop their local disaster plans and to inform the City’s new Disaster Management Plan.

Fiji Cities

UNISDR and ICLEI Oceania, along with UN Habitat, have partnered to work with several Fiji cities to assess their disaster preparedness.  In October and November 2018 rapid DRR assessments have been undertaken with the four Greater Suva municipalities and the Nadi-Lautoka Corridor. A similar assessment was then undertaken in Sigatoka in February 2019.

UN Habitat will use the resultant DRR assessments and draft action plans to help form a baseline for their Fiji Resilient Informal Settlements initiative,

ICLEI has also collated the actions from each workshop into a Generic Fiji Local Government DRR Action Plan.  This will be presented to the National Government to inform their reviews of the Disaster Management Plan and Local Government Act.