Vanuatu damage report reveals need for more aid

Transcript

Vanuatu's latest damage assessment has revealed an even greater need for assistance from the international community in the months ahead.

The Operations Manager of the National Disaster Management Office Peter Korisa, told Koroi Hawkins the report outlines gaps in the ongoing relief and recovery effort with specific instructions on what needs to be done.

Peter Korisa says the report is expected to be fully endorsed by the Vanuatu government on Thursday in order for its implementation to begin.

PETER KORISA: The second assessment, humanitarian assessment has been released, already completed. Again the question of is it already endorsed by the government perhaps, 23 they will actually give it to the government to do some endorsement on that. In the meantime they have just completed everything and they have compiled every reports and even the PDNA reports was released yesterday. And we hope for this humanitarian short term, actions which is addressing the second assessment will be endorsed on 23 this is the time frame they have given to us as far as I now about.

KOROI HAWKINS: And what are the recommendations of the report?

PK: The recommendations is actually it is more into specific clusters. The specific clusters are to, they have to earn recommendations as to how they can implement the activities on ground in the timeframe they will be allocated. And that all depends when there are resources available that each cluster have and to implement them within the time frame given.

KH: And in terms of your work is the report helpful to what you will be doing in the weeks and months ahead?

PK: For us the report is very good, it is, we have the report but again, it comes back to the implementation part of it which each individual sectors will have to implement.

KH: These sectors do they have what they need or what is recommended in the report to deliver or do you need more support and supplies from overseas?

PK: As far as I understand at the moment we from our different sectors, like I said some of those sectors we have some resources, while others may depend largely on support, whether internally or externally. I think we will need, we still need support from overseas. Partners overseas and even regionally to do some, to assist us with the implementation of some of those recommendations that have been raised by different sectors.

KH: Has the second phase of relief aid distribution that we were talking about last week has that started?

PK: Yes it has just started in some areas but for some, some areas we are still, they are still working on the arrangement of how distribution will go so actually they call it distribution plan. And there are some other locations they have finalised their distribution plans and as far as I understand some of the goods are already dispatched from Port Vila to those affected areas that have already completed their distribution plan for the second phase.

KH: Was there anything in the report that has just been released that surprised you? Anything that you did not expect that came up?

PK:  In this report, the report is really look precise and they really give us specific areas of focus. Not just overall or envelope information, it is more specific in terms of facilities. I think which is really good. So that means they really give us clear areas where, as to where we can put our focus more on that. So that area's is where we have noticed that in the past where we, sometimes we need these areas but now. This report is really clear so that gives us some more confidence on how we could allocate the resources.