Response & Recovery

: Climate change and rising sea levels and urbanization in low lying areas will increase the risk of coastal floods, erosion and salinization. Adaptation to reduce future environmental risks is inevitable, but it is unclear which coastal areas will be protected and in which regions residents will be forced to migrate. The EU-ERC COASTMOVE project aims assess how residents of low lying coastal areas can adapt and/or migrate to safer areas. For this, we aim to conduct surveys in 7 coastal areas such as Mozambique, Vietnam, Vanuatu, U.S.

Organizational Expertise Justification:

Members of the consortium have been working in Vanuatu for over 30 years. We have extensive experience working together and with the government of Vanuatu to help address the immediate and long-term needs of Vanuatu communities across the country. We also have strong experience in helping communities recover from the impacts of disaster events.

Members of this consortium were the key partners in a three year, DFAT-supported AU$2 million community-based adaptation project – Yumi stap redi long klaemet jenis – which pioneered a comprehensive approach to helping communities and local governments prepare for, and manage the immediate impacts of climate variability and extremes, while building the capacity of women, men, girls and boys to develop climate-resilient development pathways. CARE and Save the Children built on this foundation to implement a further 16-month, USAID-supported US$0.5 million community-based adaptation project, while Oxfam implemented a further three-year, Margaret A. Cargill-supported US$847,000 community-based resilience program which continued to build on existing networks and aimed to increase collaboration, knowledge sharing and support between communities, NGOs, relevant government departments and development partners around increasing community and government resilience. Our agencies have also worked in collaboration with communities from across the six provinces of Vanuatu, national civil society organisations and government to develop and implement disaster risk reduction projects, such as the DiPECHO funded “Be Better Prepared (Yumi Redi)” series of projects that focused on community-based disaster risk reduction activities and encouraged communities to form Disaster Management Committees and to support sustainable development action across a range of key sectors, including: livelihoods; water, sanitation and hygiene; education; and gender equality.

Our organizations have extensive experience developing and implementing large scale, long term projects across a range of sectors globally – including multi-year, multi-agency community-based adaptation projects across the Pacific, as well as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Laos, PNG, the Philippines, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam, valued at over AU$50 million in the past five years alone.

The Women’s Resilience to Disasters (WRD) programme is fully funded by the Government of Australia and proposes a comprehensive package to strengthen the resilience of women and girls with the goal of ensuring that the lives and livelihoods of women and girls are resilient to disasters and threats, contributing to sustainable, secure, and thriving communities.

The WRD programme will initially be implemented in Kiribati, Vanuatu, and Fiji. Programme implementation will be driven at country level and supported by regional and global components.

The country components will provide targeted action to strengthen women’s resilience and build gender-responsive systems, advancing different elements of the WRD depending on the national context, policy priorities, existing initiatives, needs, and capacities.

At the regional level, the focus will be on knowledge management, advocacy, and gender and disability support for regional mechanisms, movements, and coalitions, including the Pacific Resilience Partnership.

The global component will advance gender-responsiveness in global DRR and climate processes, provide technical support, ensure global knowledge sharing and advocacy on women’s leadership for disaster resilience, and provide a platform for sharing good practice for gender-responsive resilience and voices from the Pacific.

The expected Outcomes for WRD are two-fold:
1) Prevention, preparedness, and recovery policy frameworks, systems, processes, and tools are gender-responsive, and implemented as a result of local women’s and girls’ advocacy; and
2) Women and girls have voice and agency to withstand multiple hazards, recover from disasters, and increase their resilience to future disasters and threats.

At the country level, the WRD Programme will work with government ministries, UN agencies and regional partners, and CSOs including women’s organisations.

The programme’s principles are localization and ownership. In line with these principles, women’s organizations and DRR and resilience stakeholders will be key partners in programme implementation and monitoring and evaluation. The programme will contribute to key international processes and frameworks, including Agenda 2030, the Sendai Framework, the WHS outcomes, and the Humanitarian- Development-Peace Nexus.

As this is a pre-concept note, it outlines the project’s components, expected outcomes, expected outputs, and related budget. The project’s goal is to assist Pacific Islands develop hydrological and water resources data, information, product services, and management practices, to strengthen resilience of Pacific peoples to floods and droughts. It builds on existing infrastructure, data and information, institutional settings, and enhancing the safety, health, food and water security, livelihood and other socio-economic well-being of Pacific peoples.

The project’s objectives are: (1) To improve hydrology infrastructure and communication particularly flood and drought data and forecasting systems to improve early warnings; (2) To improve collection, management, interoperability and use of quality assured hydrological data to support hydrology products and services; (3) To strengthen collaboration among hydro-meteorological services, government, and stakeholders to better manage water resources and flood and drought early warning systems; (4) To strengthen the capacity of National Hydrological Services (NHSs) through accredited training/qualification at national and regional levels; (5) To ensure user requirement processes and development of knowledge management products for public awareness and outreach at all levels.

The project has 4 components that will focus on achieving the following: (1) To ensure effective and coordinated hydrology policy, legislation, and regulation; (2) To upgrade and enhance hydrology and water resources operational infrastructure and monitoring systems for improved resilience to hydro-meteorological hazards and threats; (3) To strengthen communication and awareness on the applications and benefits of hydrological data and products; (4) To improve capacity and knowledge of decision-makers and users of hydrological data and products.

The project’s expected outcomes include the following: (1) Improved policies, legislations, regulations, and coordination that promote and enforce resilience measures; (2) Reduced exposure and strengthened Early Warning System (EWS) for climate related hazards and threats including at regional and national scales; (3) Strengthened awareness, ownership and responses to climate related hazards at regional and national scales; and (4) Strengthened capacity of stakeholders to address and respond to hydro-meteorological hazards and threats.

The project’s expected outcomes will focus on the following: (1) Improved integration of surface and groundwater hydrology and water resources management strategies into development plans, legal frameworks and related policies and regulations; (2) Flooding/inundation, drought and groundwater related risk and vulnerability assessments conducted and updated; (3) Targeted population provided with adequate flood and inundation risk reduction systems and information products; (4) Strengthened capabilities and systems to collect, analyse, manage and disseminate hydrological and hazard information; (5) Improved knowledge and learning products through development of knowledge materials; (6) Targeted population groups participation in adaptation and risk reduction awareness activities related to hydrology and water resources; and (7) Improved capacity for NHSs staff through recognised trainings and mentorships; (8) Enhances capacity for preparedness and responses at national level through trainings and consultations.

The Adaptation Fund (AF) will provide resources to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) as the Implementing Entity to mobilise the project. The Executing Agencies, SPREP, SPC and WMO, will implement specific project components and activities. The project will also establish a Project Steering Committee (PSC) to oversee the project’s implementation.

Vanuatu is among the most vulnerable countries on earth to the increasing impacts of climate change, including climate-related natural disasters and the effects of slow-onset events such as sea-level rise and ocean acidification.

As the effects of global warming manifest and the hazards of climate change arise at accelerating rates, there is a need to shift the paradigm towards the standardised and mainstreamed use of science-based climate information, at multiple timescales, to support resilient development pathways.

The proposed project will support this paradigm shift through the strengthening and application of Climate Information Services (CIS) in five targeted development sectors: tourism; agriculture; infrastructure; water and fisheries.

More specifically, the project will build the technical capacity in Vanuatu to harness and manage climate data; develop and deliver practical CIS tools and resources; support enhanced coordination and dissemination of tailored information; enhance CIS information and technology infrastructure; and support the application of relevant CIS through real-time development processes, for more resilient outcomes.

The project has a focus on addressing information gaps and priority needs of target beneficiaries at national, provincial and local community levels across the five priority sectors.

The project will deliver enhanced:

• capacity and capability of national development agents, to understand, access and apply CIS
• CIS communications, knowledge products, tools, and resources for practical application to development processes.
• reliability, functionality, utility and timeliness of underlying CIS delivery systems and data collection infrastructure.
• scientific data, information and knowledge of past, present and future climate to facilitate innovated and resilient development.