PCRAFI II Government Stakeholder Workshop held in Nuku'alofa Featured
12 May, 2022. The Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Ministry of Finance, Ms. Pisila ‘Otunuku on Tuesday 10 Mat gave the Opening Address of Tonga’s Stakeholder & Surveyors Training Workshop for the Capacity Building and Update of the Hazard and Exposure Database for the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Assessment Financing Initiative (PCRAFI) at the Fa’onelua Convention Centre.
She warmly welcomed all the key stakeholders and government representatives to the opening, because this workshop had surpassed the challenges of the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai Volcanic Eruption in January, and the changing times caused by COVID-19 pandemic to finally making it happen today.
She announced that this PCRAFI II project would benefit Tonga as a whole, by contributing towards strengthening disaster risk reduction and disaster risk finance data for Tonga.
By providing assistance in strengthening local institutions to improve and update exposure data for Tonga, this will FIRST build upon the existing capacity in country and secondly, will strengthen baseline data that is needed for conducting risk assessments in country, as this can be also be used in collaboration with other data such as the LiDAR data for Tonga that is being funded under the regional PREP 1 project that SPC is also implementing.
This assistance will also update the Pacific Risk Information System (PacRIS) that the Pacific Community can manage on behalf of the countries including Tonga, as well as strengthening our capacity for disaster risk management and finance.
Tonga will be able to use this baseline to pull from and build upon in further risk assessment work or support provided to Tonga from other development partners.
This institutional strengthening in Pacific Island Countries including Tonga is the donor partners namely the World Bank, SPC and Pacific Forum Secretariat’s commitment because we are very prone to natural hazards in the Pacific regions.
The Acting CEO emphasized that the donor partner’s generous support will go a long way, as better risk information should support our country to make smarter investment. A good case in point was the payout of TOP$10 million from the insurance to Tonga after the damages from Tropical Cyclone GITA in 2018.
This important project is part of the Tonga government’s efforts as joint initiative of the Resilience Development & Financing Division of the Ministry of Finance, and the National Emergency Management Office (NEMO) of the Ministry of MEIDECC to assemble a comprehensive inventory of population and properties at risk. T
o improve and update the Pacific Risk Information System is the major outcome that we expect from this PCRAFI II project. Collection of exposure and impact data (where available) plays an important role in development of improved vulnerability functions, update of PacRIS and risk profiles for Tonga.
The SPC was contracted by the World Bank to execute this PCRAFI II project, is a three-year project that was extended to 2023 (2019 – 2013) with a budget of US$3.1 million to include Vanuatu, Samoa, Cook Islands. Over 60 participants in attendance, and in the reality of virtual joined the first day of 4 days training for government and stakeholder workshop.
