Giving communities a voice in Vanuatu’s disaster response system

Above: A Communications and Community Engagement workshop participant. Photo: Benoit Heurtault/CARE Vanuatu

When disaster strikes, humanitarian responders rush to provide survivors with essentials like water, food, shelter, and medical care. But globally, humanitarians and governments now recognize that providing survivors with information and making sure they have a voice in shaping the disaster response is just as important as other essentials – because communication saves lives.

In Vanuatu, the National Disaster Management Office (NDMO), with support from the Australian Government, has established a Communications and Community Engagement (CCE) Sub-Cluster as part of the national disaster response infrastructure, which also includes clusters focused on water, sanitation and hygiene, education, food, and nutrition, among other essential sectors.

More than 15 civil society organizations and government bodies form the CCE Sub-Cluster’s membership, including several Australian Humanitarian Partnership NGOs. The CCE Sub-Cluster works to strengthen two-way communication and collaboration between national decision makers and communities in preparation for, during and after disasters in Vanuatu, so that disaster-affected people have the information and resources they need to better prepare, survive, influence decisions, and be involved in the response and recovery of their own communities.

Creating a systematic feedback mechanism to ensure the needs, opinions and response of community members affected by disasters, including vulnerable groups, are captured, and fed into the national decision-making process, has been an important area of the CCE Sub-Cluster’s work. This has involved developing guidelines with approval processes and timeframes for seven key communication channels, including surveys and community meetings, as well as creating a set of standardized questions for all disaster responders to use to collect useful, comparable data to inform decision making.

First, the CCE Sub-Cluster facilitated workshop sessions with national stakeholders, including NDMO staff and other disaster response organizations, to finetune the systematic feedback mechanism and familiarize national responders with how to use it.

Now, with support from the Australian Humanitarian Partnership (AHP), CARE Vanuatu has partnered with the NDMO and the Tafea Provincial Government Council and Vanuatu Red Cross Society in Tafea Province, and the Penama Provincial Government Council and Save the Children Vanuatu in Penama Province, to roll out the systematic feedback mechanism to disaster responders at the provincial and area council levels. Tafea and Penama are the first provinces to host CCE sessions as part of Disaster Response Planning workshops. In these sessions, the systematic feedback mechanism is explained and participants, including provincial responders as well as Area Secretaries and Area Council members, have the opportunity to join in simulation activities to practice putting the systematic feedback mechanism and other communications skills into action.

Above: Jacob James, Area Administrator for central Pentecost, says that clear communication helps government better provide for affected communities during a disaster. Photo: Benoit Heurtault/CARE Vanuatu

“Communication between communities and disaster response decision makers is absolutely essential in an effective response,” explains Frida Sam, CARE’s representative on the CCE Sub Cluster.

“When disaster affected people receive timely, useful information, they can be safer and recover more quickly. When disaster response decision makers listen to feedback and ideas from communities, the response is more effective, because the communities know best what help they need to get back on their feet.

“To make sure that two-way flow of information happens efficiently, clear structures and systems need to be in place and key stakeholders need to have the right skills. We’re working to help strengthen the structures, systems, and skills within Vanuatu’s disaster response system now so that when disasters happen, we are prepared for good communication with communities.”

Jacob James, Area Administrator for central Pentecost, took part in the Penama workshop, and he agrees.

"Including community voices in decision making is so important during a response! It identifies what type of support government should be providing that is useful and appropriate for affected communities," he says.

"Whether it is information from NDMO going out to affected communities or feedback from communities going up to NDMO, it must utilise the formal NDMO communication channel, which starts at national level to provincial to area councils and then to communities, and vice-versa."

Workshops are also planned for Vanuatu’s other provinces in the coming months so communities across Vanuatu can make their voices heard.

This project is supported by the Australian Government and implemented through the Australian Humanitarian Partnership, as part of Vanuatu’s COVID-19 humanitarian response.

Story: Elissa Webster