Fiji: UNICEF Pacific Partner Update for Cyclone Winston in Fiji and news from the Pacific, April 2016

TC Winston Highlights

• UNICEF is supporting early recovery activities and supplies in WASH, education, maternal and child health, child protection and communicating with communities

• UNICEF is supporting MoEHA, MoMHA and i-Taukei Affairs with field monitoring of supplies and activities delivered to communities in response to TC Winston

• U-Report is being launched as an inter-ministerial initiative that will connect Government to the voices of Fijians throughout the country

• Safety and Protection assessment was completed in 35 villages and urban settlements in 4 Fiji Divisions affected by TC Winston

• A Post Disaster Needs Assessment has been done to assess the socio-economic impact of TC Winston

Highlights from around the Pacific

• In April, severe weather events including tropical depressions and cyclones brought heavy rain, strong wind and rough seas to parts of Cook Islands, Fiji, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu. Parts of Vanuatu were also badly shaken by a series of earthquakes including a 7.0 magnitude earthquake on 29 April.

  • The Republic of Marshall Islands and Palau both declared a state of emergency due to drought conditions.
    The States of Chuuk and Yap in the Federated States of Micronesia are also experiencing drought.
  • UNICEF deployed a specialist to assess the impact of the drought on children, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers in the Federated States of Micronesia FSM) and the Republic of Marshall Islands, and a nutrition specialist to FSM.
  • Governments from 13 Pacific Island Nations signed the COP 21 Climate Change Agreement.
  • UNICEF is supporting eight Pacific Island Countries with the transition to bivalent oral polio vaccine as part of the World Health Assembly’s Polio Eradication and Endgame Strategic Plan.
  • Samoa deposited the instrument of ratification for two Optional Protocols to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) – the Optional Protocol to the CRC on the sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography; and the Optional Protocol to the CRC on a Communications Procedure.