Fiji hosted the meeting which was held early this week at the Novotel Hotel in Nadi, Fiji.
The meeting provided a forum, for only the second time in 10 years, for meteorological services directors and disaster managers to exchange views on common issues and to discuss ways and means to enhance cooperation for increased public safety.
It was also the first time that the South Pacific Regional Environment Program and the Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission, or SOPAC, combined efforts to make this meeting happen.
SOPAC community risk program manager Mosese Sikivou said natural disasters are common to Pacific islands and have the potential to regularly cause significant drain in the annual budget of governments.
SPREP representatives Taito Nakalevu and Dean Solofa agreed on the need to bring the two related groups together.
“What we are looking for is an enhancement of the climate change program that SPREP manages for the region,” they said. “Identifying climate change and disaster risk management issues is key to ensuring that we maximize our combined efforts in these two important work areas for the region. Good by-products are the closer working ties between both national meteorological services and national disaster management offices as well as both SPREP and SOPAC programs and colleagues.”
Also attending the meeting were American Samoa, Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Tuvalu, Tonga, the U.S. and Vanuatu.
