Community Risk Programme for the Marshall Islands
The Pacific is acknowledged as being among the most threatened regions in the world, with the continuing presence of natural, human induced, technological and environmental hazards. While the threats presented by these hazards may be seasonal or differ from country to country in respect to type, frequency or intensity, no country is immune to their devastating impacts.
The challenge of achieving sustainable development goals, including poverty alleviation and protection of the environment, cannot be achieved unless the impacts of disasters on vulnerable communities is taken into account. Whilst not all risks to development result from the impact of disasters, the reduction of the potential damage from such events needs to be central to any programmes designed to achieve and maintain sustainable development. The potential damage can only be effectively reduced, in the context of the development process, by adopting a broader and more integrated approach to hazard mitigation and risk management.
The SOPAC Community Risk Programme offers such an approach to the management of community risk and targets three key areas: strengthening the resilience to disasters, mitigating the effects of hazards and mainstreaming risk management as part of the national development planning process. Through a High Level Advocacy strategy the Community Risk Programme is encouraging national commitment to the adoption of a whole of government approach to reducing community vulnerability and strengthening disaster risk management arrangements in order to improve national development planning processes in member countries.
Past Interventions
Marshall Islands free association with the United States of America [USA] provides them the benefit of being recipients of hazards related aid from the USA. However this has not secluded them from the services provided by the Community Risk Programme. Like the other Member Countries of SOPAC, the Comprehensive Hazard and Risk Management [CHARM] Program Scoping Exercise was conducted for Marshall Islands in 2001 to determine the needs of the National Disaster Management Office in relation to their capability to apply information analysis tools to assist with their risk management planning.
The other intervention was the provision of training and expert assistance in the identification, gathering and collation of environmental information needed for the calculation of the environmental vulnerability index [EVI] for the Marshall Islands .
Current Issues for the Marshall Islands
The critical issues faced by the Marshall Islands, as mentioned in various assessment reports, which relate to the Community Risk Programme and are interrelated with the other programmes of SOPAC are:
- Implications of climate change and sea-level rise.
- Vulnerability to natural disasters, such as hurricanes, cyclones, floods and severe droughts, and man-made disasters, such as oil spills.
- Need to monitor the impact of natural and environmental hazards, in particular the impact of climate change and variability on water resources.
- Need for mitigation measures to minimise the adverse impact of natural disasters, particularly on agricultural crops and livestock.
Programme Response
The Community Risk programme has a regional focus designed for implementation at the national level in each member country. Two such tasks are in place for execution in the Marshall Islands:
- Advance Public Awareness Training and Education
- Review of National Disaster Planning Arrangements
However, generally the Community Risk programme will:
- Provide support where appropriate for RMI representation at international training programmes, workshops and conferences.
- Provide high-level advocacy to promote the mainstreaming of risk management through the application of CHARM.
- Conduct CHARM national training courses and workshops
- Provide post disaster technical or institutional support following the impact of disasters.
- Monitor the environmental vulnerability index – a tool that assesses the vulnerability of the countries of the world to assist national stakeholders in decision-making and to influence policy to reduce vulnerabilities of Pacific communities.
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