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A delegation of the Standing Committee of the Pacific Islands Conference of Leaders which visited the Pacific Disaster Center on May 17. Left front row to right: His Excellency Ambassador Evan Paki, Embassy of Papua New Guinea in Washington, D.C.; Honorable Sir Allan Kamakeza, Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands; Elisabeth Gremont, Special Assistant, Regional Cooperation & External Affairs in New Caledonia; His Excellency Oscar M. Temaru, President of Tahiti; His Excellency Kessai H. Note, President of the Marshall Islands; His Royal Highness, Prince ‘Ulukalala Lavaka Ata, Prime Minister of Tonga; Dr. Allen Clark, Director of PDC. Left back row to right: Dr. Sitiveni Halapua, Director of PIDP; Mr. Stan Goosby, Chief Scientist of PDC; Mr. Joseph George Bamba, Senior Adviser to the Governor of Guam; Honorable Sebastian L. Anafel, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Federated States of Micronesia; Honorable Jim Marurai, Prime Minister of the Cook Islands; Dr. Charles E. Morrison, President of the East-West Center; Seiko Machida, PDC Administrative Officer.
As part of an annual meeting of the Standing Committee of the Pacific Islands Conference of Leaders hosted by the East-West Center’s Pacific Islands Development Program, nine heads of state and high-level officials from throughout the Pacific Islands visited the Pacific Disaster Center on May 17, 2005. The delegation was briefed on a variety of disaster-related issues as well as potential areas of collaboration.
Affirming that "there are no generic solutions to natural disasters," PDC Director Allen Clark and Chief Scientist Stanley Goosby recounted PDC’s past seven years of active engagement in the region. Their briefing touched on both natural and manmade hazards threats, and the potential applicability of PDC’s capabilities to help national governments reduce disaster risk.
"The Pacific Islands are one of our foremost points of emphasis," asserted Clark, who stressed building on the already impressive capacities of National Disaster Management Organizations throughout the region, and the importance of translating disaster-related data to meaningful information for decision makers.
Referencing the devastating Indian Ocean Tsunami of December 2004, Dr. Charles Morrison, President of the East-West Center (EWC), noted that the PDC, the East-West Center, and regional organizations are committed to "making sure that the same sort of thing doesn’t happen in the Pacific Islands."
Clark and Goosby detailed PDC’s ongoing work with the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC), the International Tsunami Information Center, and Pacific Island nations to develop a "Tsunami Awareness Kit" that would tailor country-specific tsunami preparedness information for use across the cultures of the region. The kit will be presented at SOPAC’s 12th Pacific Regional Disaster Management Meeting, to be held this June in Papua New Guinea.
PDC also conveyed its vision of working with regional organizations and national governments to undertake Risk and Vulnerability Assessments for selected locations in all three areas of Oceania--Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia.
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