By Bill
Jaynes, The Kaselehlie Press: http://www.kpress.info/
11
July 2013, Nadi, Fiji - On July 9, 2015, two journalists from
Fiji TV and Kaselehlie Press who are members of the SPREP media team sat down to
talk to Margareta Wahlstrom, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary for
Disaster Risk Reduction during the Joint Meeting of the Pacific Platform for
Disaster Risk Management and Pacific Climate Change Roundtable.
Wahlstrom
explained the role of the United Nations in the Pacific region, talked about the
integrated strategy that has been uniquely developed in the region, analysis of
legislation and many other topics that are important as the Pacific develops its
strategy to cope with Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management.
Fiji One:
What is UNISDR’s role and how is it assisting in the Pacific?
Wahlstrom:
We are not a big
operation or an agency, it’s an office for advocacy, creating evidence for why
Disaster Risk Reduction pays and how it can effectively assist countries in
suffering less losses. We do have regional offices. We have an office here in
the Pacific and we particularly work these countries on getting it into their
mechanisms for planning, for awareness, to look at disasters as not an event
that you just pay and then move on but you can actually plan for with financial
mechanisms. You can get it into your sectoral planning, and we work for the same reason with donors, the UN agencies to create a
practical agenda for how countries can focus on prevention and mitigation as
much as a cure, or maybe more prevention and mitigation as a cure.
Fiji One:
What can the Pacific expect from the UN when it comes to climate change and
disaster risk management?
Wahlstrom: We will continue to persist in this
agenda of integration to put it very simply. This region, this work that’s
going on now is very critical. It’s led by the regional organizations at the
instruction of countries and there’s a lot of resources in this region. There
is a lot of financial resources. There’s a clear shortage of capacities, not
just because the countries are small but because there is such a competition on
many issues that are important for their development.
So I think
it’s engaging them on how to use these resources in the crosscutting issue that
ensures that the country gradually builds through the financial and planning
mechanism; through the sectoral health, education, higher education, land use
planning, infrastructure, become resilient to today’s and tomorrow’s disaster
and climate stresses.
Fiji One:
How are the Pacific Islands doing about climate change and disaster risk
management?
Wahlstrom: Well, we can probably never do enough
because the change continues in the environment. If the countries now press
ahead with this integration they will achieve a much higher degree of efficiency
in how they tackle the issues of climate change and disaster risk reduction and
that will put them on the path and more quickly looking at the environmental
impact, the resilience of the infrastructure. But most important—this is
fundamentally—why are we doing all this? Because these countries are seeking to
ensure sustained development for their people for education, health benefits,
and to ensure the population that their incomes are stable.
So I can say
that all this work on mitigation and prevention is to ensure that they can they
can reap the full benefits of their development investment. They’re doing a
lot. I must say that the region should get a lot more credit for its innovation
and its effort. There’s a tendency to see the problems, a lot more than maybe
seeing in fact how much practical effort is being put into finding
solutions—small countries, few people, small economic bases, a lot of investment
by the development partners but, a lot of the countries themselves are
absolutely determined that they will succeed.
Kaselehlie
Press: Is it possible to generalize whether or not the Pacific has the
expertise to access what has been characterized as some billions of dollars of
funding that’s “out there”? In general, do we have the expertise to actually
access that funding in the Pacific region?
Wahlstrom: I think some countries do. I mean, if
you listen to the presentations or have conversation with the Minister of
Finance of Cook Islands you can hear that that’s a very strong wish and very
practical thing. He is now the chair of a working group of finance ministers
where they are all working in the same direction to use the budget to ensure
that the resources come to the countries.
Now the
regional institutions in many cases, as you know, are the first recipient of
funding that then goes to the countries. And for now that is a complement and
an effective instrument to be sure that money is there. I’m sure that the
countries envisage that gradually for the future they would like to see the
money coming to them so that they can directly benefit from it. What they do
clearly need from the UN and other partners is technical expertise just because
of the limited human resource base. What I have been told is that in some
countries there is basically a drain on resources sometimes because the
internationals recruit people and they disappear.
I think
that’s the main challenge is to accelerate the development of competencies and
skills that will stay with the countries and not disappear into international.
This is a challenge in many countries but particularly it’s huge here because
you’re dealing with such small populations to start with in many
cases.
So I think
these two elements are the critical ones saying “can they access the
resources”. They do access the resources, a lot of the resources.
Fiji One:
You mentioned about technical experts and how experts from the region are
leaving for greener pastures. Are there any plans from United Nations to help
the region regarding that, to maintain experts here or to provide with
experts?
Wahlstrom:
I believe there could
be a lot of incentive for the UN but the Pacific as a region is very different
from other regions in a sense that the big actors here are the CROPs (Council of
Regional Organisations in the Pacific) like SPC. They have lots of staff. They
have lots of expertise. They were set up particularly so that these countries
were taken care of particularly. Now that doesn’t mean its enough. I know the
UN is represented here UNDP, UNICEF, FAO and there are others. They all have
experts here. They’re not very large but the UN is for sure motivated to add as
required. But I think that we are all very careful not overload countries
because there’s a lot of engagement here and we hear about many, many missions
to countries—international institutions, multilaterals, donors, partners—so
sometimes I think that we need to let countries work, let the ministers do their
job, let the technical expert actually get on with the job, and try to be a bit
more economical in how we coordinate ourselves in our support to
them.
So I think
that what the UN would like to see is a very strong cooperation between the UN,
SPC, SPREP, the big technical organizations that support countries so that we
are very well organized among us to know how we can complement each other’s
capacities.
Kaselehlie
Press: I would just ask you if you have any specific message that you would
like to get out through our media resources.
Wahlstrom: Yes, I think that what we want for you
particularly that covers the political issues, try to expand the understanding
of the economics of disaster. It’s when governments, ministers of finance, and
leaders begin to understand not only the direct losses from the damage but also
what happens afterwards, how costly reconstruction is; how costly poor quality
reconstruction is. It’s also a question of who actually pays. Government pays
a lot. Business pays but most of the losses normally accrues to the individual
citizen as it goes down, you know personal losses are very rarely fully
compensated. So gradually increasing this perspective since there are things to
a high degree you can mitigate or prevent, do it in order to use those resources
for a more positive purpose. So I think that gradually uncovering and unlocking
that understand would be a great task.
The other one
is continuous, ongoing public awareness campaigns. Constantly talk, not to
scare people but tell them what to do to protect yourself, your family, you
community. “Don’t forget where the evacuation routes are.” “When you get an
early warning signal follow the advice”. “Know where to go”. “Move away your
property that might be damaged by a flood.” So that’s my second message.
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