Summary
Some of the key activities in the initial plan of action have been delayed because further community consultations showed that a response focusing on WASH activities alone will not be sufficient to meet the immediate needs of the affected population. The drought has also impacted on short-term food shortage in the communities. The National Disaster Committee (NDC) took the decision to deploy Inter Agency Assessment Teams to the four regions of the country to assess the extent of the impacts on communities. These assessments have been conducted between 22 August and 13 September 2015 covering 19 of the 22 Provinces. The findings and recommendations were presented in the NDC meeting held on 1 October. In view of the considerable financial implication and inter-sectoral nature of the El Nino impacts, the NDC recommended for a cabinet submission to be made outlining the impacts, immediate and long term needs, the budgets and the main gaps in responding to the needs of affected communities.
An estimate of 2.4 million people are affected to varying degrees, in which some 1.7 million requires food assistance and access to potable water. To date, the government has provided the much needed food assistance to approximately 40 per cent of the most affected communities. Although some progress has been made in providing water supply to communities that are easily accessible, majority of places faced with water insecurity did not receive the much needed assistance. The international partners together with civil society organizations and private sector have also come forward to support the government’s response in areas such as Food Security, Health, Nutrition, Protection and WASH. It is crucial at this stage to ensure these are guided by a framework to ensure needs of affected communities are properly addressed in a coordinated and timely manner.
A government led process of strategic response planning to ensure better connections between assessments, needs analysis, resource mobilization, implementation, monitoring and evaluations of 2015 El Nino response operations will be initiated on 16 December. It will validate the current strategy that the government is using to respond to the most affected communities. It is hoped that this planning process will ensure better allocation of resources, inform a focus on most critical sectors and geographical locations as well as strengthen existing coordination arrangements. Activities relating to early recovery phase will be discussed to ensure linkages are being made to existing development programmes.
This resulted in the postponing of distribution of WASH NFI to communities. In a country rife with security concerns, acting against these recommendations would pose serious security risks on PNGRCS volunteers working in the targeted communities. This is consistent with results from assessments carried out by other organizations in country. This has limited the ability of the PNGRCS to undertake complementary Wash activities within the DREF timeframe. The WASH activities identified include hygiene promotion focusing on safe water handling and treatment, and distribution of jerry cans.
A no-cost extension is therefore required by the PNGRCS to complete the above stated WASH activities in the affected communities. The PNGRCS operation team and IFRC representative met with ECHO representatives during an ECHO support visit and there was support indicated for the approaches taken to date by the PNGRCS.
DG ECHO being one of the institutional donors in the Pacific region has also made contribution to the replenishment of DREF.
The IFRC, on behalf of the PNGRCS, would like to thank DG ECHO for the generous contribution to the replenishment of this DREF.