(Transcript from World News Radio)
Australia has announced $2 million dollars for a program designed to encourage creative solutions to the challenges faced by Pacific communities as a result of natural disasters.
The announcement came as Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Governor General Sir Peter Cosgrove both visit the Pacific region.
Kristina Kukolja has the details.
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The Humanitarian Innovation Challenge is open to individuals in the public and private sectors, academics, and NGOs.
It's meant to encourage new ideas to help prepare for natural disasters, or mitigate the severity of their effects.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop announced the Australian funding for the program at a meeting in Auckland to prepare for the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul in May next year.
"We're putting $2 million on the table, and we're inviting people to come up with the very best ideas that we can then assess, we can trial, and if we believe they'll work, we can scale them up and feed that experience into the World Humanitarian Summit. So our humanitarian innovation challenge is an opportunity for us to actually trial some of the best ideas that people who have lived through natural disasters can come up with. We know that risk management and preparedness is absolutely essential for it saves lives and it protects economies. But there must be new and different and innovative ways of thinking about some of the challenges that we faced over so many years."
While in Auckland, Ms Bishop has also held talks with the administrator of the United Nations Development Program, Helen Clark.
Ms Clark says it's a tough time for countries having to deal with natural disasters.
"The world is facing an unprecedented humanitarian relief burden at this time - not only from the mega disasters, but also from protracted conflicts and from a disaster like the outbreak of Ebola which got away and which has caused great loss of life and great disruption to communities in west Africa. Here is the Pacific the focus is very much on the issues caused by extreme weather - the cyclones, the flooding, the earthquakes, the tsunamis."
Helen Clark says in Auckland, she's been emphasising the need for countries in the Pacific to do more to prepare for natural disasters.
But she admits that this does require a commitment of aid funds from donor countries.
"More investment up front in reducing disaster risk will not only save lives but it will save communities the incredible development setbacks they see in being in the eye of a storm they have not been able to effectively plan around."
It's just over three months since Cyclone Pam hit Vanuatu, killing 11 people and destroying thousands of homes and buildings.
Australia has played a key role in the reconstruction effort and has sent the Governor General, Sir Peter Cosgrove, for a brief visit to have a look at what's been achieved.
SBS reporter Luke Waters, who's also in Vanuatu, says the Governor General will be having a busy day on Thursday.
"Sir Peter Cosgrove will be meeting a range of stakeholders crucial in the post-cyclone reconstruction. They include the military, politicians. And he'll also fly to the small island of Tanna, where he'll visit some of the worst-affected communities, the hospitals, the schools, and also meet the Australian aid agencies which continue to provide support to many of the people who still are in need. Governor General Cosgrove's visit also coincides with the release of a joint report from four aid agencies which is critical of Vanuatu's President's decision to visit Japan when the Category Five cyclone, Cyclone Pam, was bearing down on Vanuatu, but the President, Mr (Baldwin) Lonsdale, is yet to respond to that criticism."
