Representatives from disaster and incident management agencies undertook a two-day course on inter-service incident management in Suva last week.
The Australasian Inter-Service Incident Management System or AIIMS Course introduced participants to a systematic way of managing incidents when involving either single or multi-agencies.
In opening the workshop, Ministry of Rural and Maritime Development and National Disaster Management deputy secretary, Setareki Tale reminded participants about the importance of sharing knowledge, information and cooperation in national development and national disaster resilience.
Workshop coordinator, Mr Anthony Blake said the course was to ensure that all incident personnel were working towards one set of objectives.
Eroni Duaibe, participant from the Royal Military Forces commended the course as it would allow agencies dealing with incidents to understand the different roles they play.
“An agency’s jurisdiction of responsibility needs to be known so that other agencies involved in an incident can know where to take over from,” Mr Duaibe said.
Mr Duaibe said that more collaboration in terms of information sharing and synchronisation of responsibilities were needed between agencies.
Over 20 participants from various incident management agencies participated at the two-day workshop, which included the National Fire Authority, the Police, Ministry of Defence, Fiji Military Forces and the Fiji Navy to name a few.
The AIIMS course, an initiative of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) was facilitated by Fire and Rescue Services from Victoria and Queensland, Australia in conjunction with the Pacific Islands Emergency Management Alliance and the National Disaster Management Office.
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