Building the bridge for Pacific resilience through Disaster READY

This speech will look at some of the benefits of working in partnership across the Pacific to better deliver community-driven DRR and preparedness programming. The Australian Humanitarian Partnership (AHP) is a partnership between the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and six Australian NGOs. Disaster READY is a disaster preparedness and resilience program implemented by AHP partners and their local networks in Fiji, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, and Timor-Leste. On behalf of Disaster READY and its partners, Josefa Lalabalavu, Plan International’s Pacific DRM Manager, reflects on some of the successes and challenges of the past four years. He discusses how a strengthened partnership between humanitarian practitioners better supports locally-led responses, which ultimately gives vulnerable communities the tools they need to prepare for and mitigate against disaster.