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Field Ready was recently on an assessment in the Pacific Region. We are going to be highlighting the countries we visited on the assessment for the Australian Humanitarian Partnership. The objective of the assessment was to better understand how we may respond to disasters in the region and build capacity and resilience against disasters.
Fiji was the first country visited where we met with potential partners such as Habitat for Humanity. In the aftermath of Cyclone Winston in 2016, displaced persons had extreme difficulty accessing the items they needed. The items available did not meet the ideal standard but NGO's had to make due. With 62,000 people displaced and 230,000 affected NGO’s had extreme shortages of items needed to adequately respond to the cyclone. Another problem identified were the temporary latrines built, but were not widely used only further contributing to water borne illnesses.
There are a number of ways we see our organization helping disaster response in Fij. One of the ways being to make standard aid items in large volumes locally. Fiji has the support of the NGO and private sector to support this undertaking as well as our expertise in locally manufactured aid items.