Senior officials of the Ministry of Rural and Maritime Development and Disaster Management attending a two-day Risk Informed Development Planning Workshop in Suva were reminded about the key role they play in the Ministry’s journey towards creating sustainable and resilient rural communities yesterday.
Following the launch of the Ministry’s 10-Year Strategic Development Plan (SDP), the Ministry in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Governance for Resilience (Gov4Res) in the Pacific Project is hosting a two-day workshop to discuss, review and strengthen the Ministry’s risk informed development processes through lessons learned after the successful piloted of 5 risk-informed projects for the financial year 2020-2021. The workshop also provided an opportunity to review the current project proposal and reporting processes to ensure that elements of risk are covered, including gender and social inclusion.
The Ministry’s Divisional Planning Units, Provincial Administrators (PAs), Senior Economic Planning Officers (SEPOs), Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) officers and project officers participated in the workshop.
In addressing the participants during the session yesterday, Minister for Rural and Maritime Development and Disaster Management Inia Seruiratu reiterated that Government’s development paradigm dramatically shifted after the Tropical Cyclone Winston in 2016. This saw the integration of resilience at the heart of all development initiatives by Government.
“Our development paradigm shifted significantly after TC Winston - resilience is now at the core of all the developments that we need to undertake and it is also aligned to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and respecting humanitarian principles – because we are dealing with people. On this new journey, you need to adapt and adopt so that you can be effective and efficient in undertaking the work, the call and the responsibilities that come with your appointments,” Minister Seruiratu reminded the participants.
“Risk informed developments is not new. It is something that had been neglected for long.”
Minister Seruiratu said, Government had incurred significant losses from recent disasters due to damage to development assistance especially on water tanks which were usually given out to communities in the form of Government assistance.
However, with the adoption of risk informing developments, this is envisaged to solve majority of these recurring problems.
Minister Seruiratu acknowledged the UNDP Gov4Res Project for their partnership towards funding the risk component of several projects implemented by the Ministry, saying this new journey is exciting not only for the Ministry, but to the senior management as well.
“It is indeed a great opportunity for the Ministry to partner with the UNDP under the Governance for Resilience in the Pacific (Gov4Res) initiative to ensure that risk informed developments is at the core of our developments in Fiji, especially in the rural areas,” he said.