Disaster and risk management-Partners work on 10-year action plan |16 February 2012

A half-day workshop held at the International Conference Centre recently brought together representatives of the police department, fire and rescue services, department of environment, the Seychelles Civil Aviation Authority, and the United Nations Development Programme to begin drafting a long-term strategic plan which is expected to cover a period of 10 years.

The director general for the division of risk and disaster management, Alain De Commarmond said this first meeting targeted immediate stakeholders but other meetings to be held soon will include a wider range of partners.

The workshop coincided with the mission of a United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) delegation in the country assessing the status of Seychelles in this domain.

The delegation will also recommend the way forward to formulating the action plan.
Mr De Comarmond said that at the end of the project, they will have a detailed plan to explain the national effort to put all structures in place to make disaster risk and management in a clear and effective way.

“Of course all the agencies and sectors involved have their own individual plans but the strategic plans will merge all of them together with the end result being a safer Seychelles, which is ready for disasters or risks which might crop up in the future,” he said. 

“Eventually there will be a consultant who will help us draft the plan and if all goes according to plan, this will start in the coming months.”

During the workshop, the UNOCHA delegation also presented their preliminary findings after they had met and consulted various partners and agencies in Seychelles who are involved with disaster risk and management on the national level.