In September, the University of Auckland hosted the 6th International Conference on Build Resilience.
The conference brought together researchers, educators and industry practitioners from across the globe to explore resilience as a useful framework for analysis for how society can cope with the threat of natural and human-induced hazards.
One of the highlights of the conference was the ‘Climate Adaptation and Resilience Building in the Pacific Workshop’ that Dr. Henning chairs.
In this workshop, Dr. Henning introduced the Climate Adaptation Platform to the audience, which included nine MFAT sponsored delegates from across the Pacific Islands.
As part of the workshop, each delegate was given the opportunity to speak about the most important issues their nations face in relation to climate adaptation and resilience building and to comment on how they think New Zealand could help them tackle these issues.
In general, most of the nations expressed the same common concerns, all of which highlight areas where our Platform can support.
- “Build back” needs to be more holistic – build back communities, not just buildings
- Lack of available resources
- Codes need to be updated to cater to climate change
- Need for a single integration plan, not separate plans
- Disaster shelters inadequate. How safety here is insured?
- Need to try to identify risk earlier and not wait for something to happen
- Must prevent, not react. Cannot afford to patch up after events.
- Need to learn from our past. Traditional methods of construction can sometimes be better than modern methods
- Lack of education to respond and equip adequately
- Universities and other education providers need to recognise all of the above and educate accordingly
Post-conference feedback from the delegates on this workshop was very good and we are maintaining communication will all to identify areas of support going forward.
SOURCE: The Climate Adaptation Platform Newsletter 22 November 2016 edition
PHOTO CREDIT: Building Resilience Twitter
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