The Project for the Improvement of Equipment for Disaster Risk Management would enable the Department of Meteorology to strengthen its capacity to detect, monitor and provide early warnings to the people of Fiji on severe weather and associated hazards.
At the signing for Exchange of Notes for the project between the Ministry of Works, Transport and Public Utilities and the Government of Japan today, Ministry permanent secretary Mr Francis Kean said through this assistance of $5.7million, early warnings for Fiji will be enhanced for an effective response.
“In collaboration with warning providers of non-metrological hazards, as well as Counter-Disaster Agencies, early warnings for Fiji and its people will be significantly improved,” Mr Kean said.
“This Project Agreement that we are signing today marks another milestone project for the Fiji Government that will be used for the upgrading of equipment and facilities at the Nadi Regional Weather Office, for the benefit of the people of Fiji and the region.”
Mr Kean added that the equipment will improve the Nadi Regional Weather Office’s technical capacity to forecast more accurately the severity of tropical cyclones, rain systems, flooding and to monitor severe sea conditions in the region.
“On the whole, this 300 million Yen project, equivalent to $5.7million (Fiji Dollars) shall be used for the purchase of improved weather forecasting equipment like Doppler radar, computer hardware equipment, lighting detection systems, wind profiler and automatic weather stations to improve the technical capability and capacity of the Fiji Meteorological Services.
“This improved technical capacity will foster more confidence in our weather, sea and flooding forecast by our various communities in the Pacific Islands,” Mr Kean said.
Japanese Ambassador, H.E Eiichi Oshima highlighted that the grant assistance for the project is aimed at promoting international co-operation in the field of disaster management by providing equipment based on Japan’s experiences last year following the earthquake and tsunami that struck the nation.
H.E Oshima said both Fiji and Japan are vulnerable to natural disasters and that they can share the knowledge and lessons learnt from disasters.
“Japan recognises the suffering Fiji experienced during the recent floods and cyclones that made many homeless, forced evacuations and cut off access to bridges and highways and even resulted in casualties.
“This project is envisaged to save more lives and allow time for people to prepare ahead for future disasters,” H.E Oshima added.
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