Pacific Island countries are the most vulnerable nations highly exposed to adverse impacts of climate change and natural hazards such as cyclones, storm surge, floods, earthquakes and tsunamis. The PICs are not only remote but also dispersed over a large area, with small domestic economies that are significantly impacted in the event of a natural disaster. This is recognised as a core development challenge affecting social and economic development. In addition, populations reside in risk-prone areas and with the intensity of natural events and climate change expected to increase it poses additional challenges including population growth. There is a need to strengthen disaster early warning and preparedness and to mainstream disaster risk and climate change into the development planning process and financing.
The SPC component of the PREP programme include a combination of activities and investments that would improve resilience of the participating countries and Pacific region to natural hazards by improving forecasting and disaster preparedness. It will enhance resilient development and ensure risk-informed decisions are made through improved access to information. The activities implemented to strengthen early warning including the related modelling work for coastal inundation in Marshall Islands, Tonga and Samoa is groundbreaking research jointly implemented with leading international scientists. This will be replicated in other Pacific Island countries through the capacity being developed nationally and regionally that will be integrated into their respective multi-hazard early warning systems.
