Strengthening disaster readiness in the Pacific

Across the Pacific, small Red Cross societies are often the first responders when cyclones, earthquakes, and health emergencies hit, but they frequently have only a handful of staff and limited resources.

New Zealand Red Cross is helping these societies strengthen their disaster readiness, using the National Society Operational Readiness Check: a simple International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) tool to review preparedness and turn gaps into action plans.

New Zealand Red Cross international delegate Dallas Roy recently spent about 10 days in the Cook Islands and another 10 days in Samoa, supporting local Red Cross teams through the readiness process.

“It’s basically a health check for emergency response capabilities,” Dallas says.

“We sit together, assess their current strengths and challenges, review emergency plans, check stored relief supplies, and plan for threats such as drought, floods, and storm surges, and then turn that into a concrete action plan.”

For Cook Islands Red Cross Society, an organisation with just six staff, and for Samoa Red Cross Society, with fewer than 20 employees, the process helps identify gaps in training, equipment, and systems and gives the teams clear evidence to show government, donors, and the wider IFRC where investment is needed.

Dallas starts in each country by listening to staff and volunteers, asking about their most important risks, and then introducing the checklist as a way to map their current preparedness. A short‑term action plan then ranks what needs to be done first, what can wait, and where extra support or funding is required.

He says it’s a “quality management approach” to continual improvement: sharpening systems that already exist so the societies are better prepared to support affected people and communities in the next cyclone, earthquake, or health emergency.

Dallas’s work in the Cook Islands and Samoa shows how support looks in practice: listening first, then using a simple but highly effective tool to help local teams get ready for the disasters they will inevitably face. 

More information 

• We help communities in the Pacific prepare for disasters, provide support during an emergency event, and help communities get back on their feet afterwards.
  Read more about our work in the Pacific
• Delegates provide support in several ways including helping to build capacity to strengthen disaster resilience and providing personnel and resourcing during and following a disaster.
  Read more about our International Delegate Programme

Lead photo: In 2018 Cyclone Gita tore through the Pacific, including Samoa, where it left a trail of destruction.