Fiji will pilot the project for Anticipatory Action for Tropical Cyclones, funded under the Central Emergency Response Funds (CERF).
This was agreed to by Cabinet following a meeting last Wednesday.
In a statement, Cabinet said the ministries of Finance, Women, Children and Social Protection and National Disaster Management Office would be coordinating the pilot project with the World Food Programme and other relevant United Nations agencies.
“Anticipatory Action refers to actions triggered before a crisis to mitigate the worst effects of the crisis, or even avoid crisis altogether,” the Cabinet statement read.
“AA is a new global concept used in humanitarian aid, climate change, disaster, and climate finance. Fiji is the first country in the Pacific to pilot AA related to tropical cyclones.
“AA builds on existing Disaster Risk Reduction frameworks that enable actions and financing to be triggered on the forecast of an impending hazard rather than reacting to its impact.”
Cabinet has confirmed the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Centre for Humanitarian Data has been working closely with NDMO and Fiji Meteorological Service (FMS) to design the triggers.
The framework follows a two-stage trigger activation, each part of which is triggered based on the lead time of the points in the forecast. UN agencies involved in the pilot project include the World Food Programme (WFP), Food and Agriculture (FAO), United Nations International Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), UN Women, and International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
