The Vanuatu Business Resilience Council (VBRC) is supporting the emergency response to the twin cyclones that have hit Vanuatu earlier this month. The private sector network, a Member of the Connecting Business initiative, is mobilising utility companies to restore electricity, phone and boat transport services. VBRC is also setting up a fast-recovery cash transfer programme.
The twin cyclones: impact and initial response
Tropical cyclones Judy and Kevin, both of Category 4 intensity, made landfall over Vanuatu on the 1st and 3rd of March, affecting over 251,000 people and causing extensive damage to telecommunications towers and agricultural crops. Within days, national authorities declared a 6-month State of Emergency over the entire country.
As of the 20th of March, 51 evacuation centres remain active hosting almost 2,000 people (476 households) in Shefa and Tafea, while over 800 people (129 households) are with host households.
A main concern is the predicted food shortage in the Southern Islands, as it will likely take a few months for fresh fruit and vegetables to come back and be available at the markets.
A snapshot of a situation report gives an overview of the impact of the twin cyclones. Credit: OCHA SitRep 4
The response has been significant, with over 700 international responders in the country. Their focus has been delivering water as well as sanitation and hygiene kits to people relocated to evacuation centers from peri-urban settlements that suffered damage to their informal housing. Organizations including the International Federation of the Red Cross, Save the Children, World Vision, Care International, and Oxfam have 200 or more staff and volunteers attending to these needs with items provided by the Governments of France, New Zealand, and Australia.
How businesses are partaking in the twin cyclone response in Vanuatu
The Vanuatu Business Resilience Council (VBRC) concentrated on key activities that complement the Government response, including
- Coordinating with the power company to assist in communication and identifying the priority areas to fix
- Working with the International airport to get them power so the full navigation equipment can be up and running again and assisting the installation of a backup power system
- Coordinating the request from the two telecommunications providers to seek assistance and providing helicopter equipment. VBRC facilitated this direct request by the Prime Minister's office that was then facilitated by the NDMO, resulting in the deployment of HMAS Canberra with three helicopters and 600 military personnel on board
- Working with the Minister of Climate Change Adaptation (MoCCA) to clarify the responsibilities of all personnel under the state of emergency, resulting in the removal of unnecessary approval processes for commercial flights and inter-island transportation
- Providing the initial assessment of the domestic shipping fleet capacity vessels along with a damage assessment of the fleet, which included identifying when damage would be repaired
- Coordinating with domestic shipping to provide berthing support to the Australian military along with the damaged Vanuatu Maritime vessels to safely berth them
- Working with the Ministry of Trade, Commerce, Industries and Tourism to have a once weekly Boeing cargo service of fresh produce from Santo delivered to Port Vila so that the Port Villa urban population has access to fresh produce.
- Planning a cash transfer operation as soon as possible to negate the ongoing expense and logistical challenge of a long term food on the islands of Efate and Tanna
- Working with insurance companies to ascertain actual damage to infrastructure (the current assessment is approximately 4-5% of claims compared to Tropical Cyclone Pam in 2015)
- Participating and representing the private sector in the Pacific humanitarian team meetings and has been supporting the logistics cluster and cash working group
“The response is very organised, and Vanuatu should be back to normal in a matter of months - in fact, students are already back in school.”
- Glen Craig, President of the VBRC
For more information on how the VBRC operates and the kinds of programmes it runs, visit the VBRC page on the CBi website or follow VBRC on Facebook.