1 August 2024, Tarawa, Kiribati – Early warning systems play a crucial role in the resilience of a country and its peoples in the face of extreme weather events and disasters. Being able to receive warnings well in advance of the occurrence of extreme weather events gives people and communities time to prepare and respond accordingly.
However, the responses to these early warnings are only as good as the coordination between the various key stakeholders – between government and response agencies, right down to those at the community level.
A desktop simulation exercise for rapid onset and slow onset weather events was carried out in Tarawa today to test the existing coordination mechanisms between the government and response agencies, and to gauge what, if any, disaster plans have existed for each of the different agencies.
The exercise was conducted in response to a request from the Kiribati Meteorological Service (KMS) and the Disaster Management Office (DMO) to the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) for support to strengthen not only their internal coordination, but coordination with external stakeholders to better respond to early warnings of extreme weather events and disasters.
Representatives from Media and Broadcasting, Telecommunications, Police and Fire, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Sustainable Energy, and the Office of Te Beretitenti through the National Disaster Management Office (NDMO) and the Kiribati Meteorological Service (KMS), key stakeholders and partners for Kiribati’s national disaster response, took part in the simulation exercise and provided their invaluable feedback on the roles of their respective organisations.
This national response team were presented with scenarios for both rapid onset events such as strong winds and swells and slow onset events such as droughts and La Niña, from whence they had to formulate a response plan that specifies what the response will look like, and who plays what role in implementing that response across all sectors including Water, Health, Fisheries, and Agriculture.
Ms. Takena Redfern, NDMO Director with the Office of Te Beretitenti, recognised the importance of the exercise in identifying gaps within their coordination mechanism.
“This is a good exercise for us to have a look at the coordination mechanisms of our national response team for the different events. We hope to get good feedback and comments from our stakeholders who have a key role in our disaster response and we look forward to a fruitful outcome that can help build the resilience of our people and communities to respond to extreme weather events and disasters,” Ms. Redfern said.
SPREP’s Climate Change Adaptation Adviser, Ms. Filomena Nelson, said, “The main aim of this exercise is to get an idea of the existing procedures that are followed by the KMS, NDMO and the different response agencies during rapid and slow onset events. That information and those discussions will inform the development of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for those different events not only for KMS but NDMO and first responders.
“Our end goal here is for Kiribati to have an improved set of SOPs for national disaster response, so the discussions and responses from this simulation exercise will ultimately inform their development,” Ms. Nelson added.
Ms. Siosinamele Lui, SPREP’s COSPPac Traditional Knowledge Adviser, worked with the KMS over the past week to develop communications products for messages and warnings issued by the KMS. The simulation exercise provided an opportunity to see how the NDMO receives these warnings and information and coordinates its response to partners, and how those partners and response agencies implement their own response plans.
“We want to make sure that at all different stages of the warnings, everyone understands what their role is, when that role kicks in and they’re required to respond, and also when to pull back,” Ms. Lui added.
The exercise is one of many planned activities as part of the CREWS initiative for Kiribati that will be led by both KMS and NDMO to strengthen coordination and early warning systems at the national and community level.
The Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems (CREWS) Project is a four-year, USD 4.8 million project that aims to enhance regional and national capacity and systems for risk informed services related to extreme and high impact hydro-meteorological events in the Cook ISlanbds, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.
The project is funded by the World Meteorological Organization, the World Bank Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. Regional implementing partners include SPREP, the Pacific Community, and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
For more information, please contact Ms. Filomena Nelson at [email protected] or Ms. Siosinamele Lui at [email protected].