Community Resilience and Coping with Climate Change and Natural Disasters in Vanuatu

The unique geographic situation renders the Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs) extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and natural disasters. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Vanuatu, a small island developing state comprising of 80 low lying islands where climate change and natural disasters not only undermine people’s livelihood and dignity but also threaten the country’s existence. Faced with growing internal displacement as a result of rising sea levels and coastal flooding, the impacts of climate change and natural disasters also salinize fertile soil and fresh water supplies and threaten food and water security of the most vulnerable.

The goal of the programme is to enhance the resilience and coping capacity of vulnerable communities in Vanuatu to respond to adverse effects of climate change and natural disasters. The programme also aims to gather lessons learned from experiences in Vanuatu to be shared with other PICTs. To this end, the programme seeks to: (i) support and monitor 12 communities to develop disaster risk reduction and management plans and activities; (ii) develop the capacity of six provincial governments as well as selected communities to mainstream community resilience and people-centred coping mechanisms into local development, governance and decision making processes; (iii) improve food production, processing, storage and marketing; (iv) increase access to safe water; and (v) establish the mechanism to monitor and disseminate information on climate-related disaster risks.

KEY MATERIALS
Programme Summary
Human Security Challenges in Torba Province