Floods test Honiara’s resilience plans

HONIARA, Solomon Islands, 2 March 2018 – Less than 24 hours after Honiara launched a major review of its disaster resilience planning, heavy rain and flash floods provided an immediate test of the city’s preparedness.

Read the full story by Andy McElroy, UNISDR, here: 
https://www.unisdr.org/archive/57318
 
Honiara City was one of the first Pacific towns to become an ICLEI member and ICLEI Oceania has been working with Honiara for several years to help them build their resilience.  From 26 February to 2 March, ICLEI and UNISDR were in Honiara to continue developing their Action Plan for Disaster Preparedness and Response.  This included a full-day workshop on Wednesday 28 February to plan better coordination between the key agencies when a disaster strikes. 
 
The next day the city experienced torrential rains and flash-flooding.  Mayor Andrew Mua immediately convened the Disaster Committee to trigger a rapid assessment and first response, enacting the coordination principles from the workshop. ICLEI and UNISDR were invited to attend and observe the committee meeting and will return to Honiara in early April to continue supporting the City to develop a best-practice DRR system.
 
Mayor Mua is Pacific representative on the ICLEI Oceania Regional Executive Committee.  He will be able to use this leadership role to assist other Pacific island cities to upgrade their disaster preparedness and response capacities.