A joint mission comprising Food and Agriculture Organisation and various Vanuatu government officers will be deployed to South Pentecost to assess damage caused by TC Harold in the 15 villages within the project site.
The officers are from the FAO’s Integrated Sustainable Land and Coastal Management (ISLCM) Project, Ministry of climate Change (MOCC) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Forestry, Fisheries and Biosecurity (MALFFB).
The ten-member team will be using the Participatory Rural Communication Appraisal (PRCA).
They will also Conduct Damage and Loss assessment following FAO procedures and using KOBOToolbox, meet with Customary Chiefs; Area secretariat members; NGO’s and communities and Plan activities/interventions that address immediate community livelihoods needs
The joint mission led by the project partners is part of ISCLM Project, and GEF funded project, that works on four islands of Aneityum, Tanna, Efate and South Pentecost.
After the landfall of TC Harold, ISLCM project management unit (PMU) began the work of carrying out the project activities planned for 2020 and realigned them on South Pentecost, one of the project sites.
The initiative is titled “Livelihood Recovery Programme (LRP)” for South Pentecost.
Realignment is done following the guidance that the MALFFB has identified as the worst affected and with highest priority for rapid food security response.
FAO will maintain regular communication with the Director General (DG) of MALFFB and the Ministry and FSAC more broadly, to review these priorities based on more detailed assessment if necessary, and ensure the intervention continues to meet the needs of those that the MALFFB identifies as the most in need of rapid assistance to support food security and livelihoods.
FAO Vanuatu has secured further form of funding from FAO’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) that will be available for support to TC Harold affected communities in Sanma, Penama and Mapama, and FAO will meet with the DG of MALFFB to obtain the Ministry’s endorsement on the priority areas to be supported by the CERF intervention.
FAO support will aim at conducting trainings on processing and conserving vegetables, fish and livestock will complement the distribution of agricultural inputs, by building the capacity of communities to conserve current food stocks. This will reduce food losses and support livelihoods and food security in the short-term while agricultural production is re-established with the support of the agricultural inputs distributed.
The Director General (DG) of MALFFB, as well as the FSAC, have highlighted both immediate agricultural inputs, and greater processing capacity, as urgent needs of the worst affected communities that are being targeted by the intervention.
The Livelihood Recovery Programme (LRP) will contribute to the agriculture sector recovery programmeme and Government priorities included in the National Sustainable Development Goals. The priorities in each of the sub-sectors (crops, fisheries and livestock) have been integrated into the activities that will be implemented through the proposed intervention.
FAO will also support the Vanuatu Government in TC Harold Response & Recovery Plan with a total of VT 180,756,597.
Photo supplied Caption: Fresh fish delivered to people of South Pentecost by the Food Security Agriculture Cluster team