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A unique partnership between the Solomon Islands Meteorological Service (SIMS), Red Cross and the National Disaster Management Office has been established through the Finland-Pacific (FINPAC) Project that is coordinated by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) for the Pacific. For Mr. Cameron Vidu, Solomon Islands Red Cross Disaster Manager "the project helped us realise the important role of the Met Service in preparing and building resilient communities. We used to think that we could answer the technical Met-related questions from communities during our awareness programmes, now, we can see a big difference when Met Services is actually part of the team".
For SIMS forecasters, their normal daily routine of analysing data, putting together daily weather updates and warnings changed for the first time, not because they had to attend a normal technical training but this time it was to spend their day with leaders, men, women, youth and the elderly at Lord Howe Settlement, an urban settlement located on the fringes of the Mataniko river in Honiara.
For Mr. Alex Rilifia "sitting down with communities and listening to them talking about not being able to use the information has opened our eyes to the reality of what is happening at the end-users' side"
"It has challenged us to work harder at tailoring the information we provide so that our communities can understand and use it to plan, prepare and respond well in the future".
For Bryan Tom from the National Disaster Management Office - "NDMO has only a few staff looking after the whole country. This is good example of partnerships to help our communities prepare, and if they understand the warnings and activate their plans developed through the project, then we are happy that we could be able to save lives when disasters occur"
The partnership between the three national agencies is new and can be replicated in other communities across Solomon Islands through future projects and existing opportunities at the national level.
A small pilot project to assist Lord Howe Settlement improve its early warning system will be supported by SPREP and the World Meteorological Organization through the FINPAC and WMO-Canada Project.
