As many people know, Vanuatu is recognized as being vulnerable to a broad range of natural hazards and is ranked as among the most disaster prone nations in the world. As an example, between 1980 and 2010 the country had suffered 31 disasters; with the most recent being Cyclone Lusi.
Brian and Patrick discussing Technology Disaster Preparedness.
As a result, Brian Heatherich joined the team for three months to undertake this assessment. Mr Heatherich and the Information and Technology (IT) team quickly assessed the current situation, concluding that from a technology perspective, it is a good news story. The DCIR IT team have built a solid technically resilient solution to meet any disaster head on. Rather than technology, the areas requiring attention were the business response, process improvement and stakeholder management aspects of the organisation.
Today, at the end of three months, DCIR believes that it is now better prepared to respond to a disaster. In addition, DCIR have a solid strategy in place to further improve resilience over the next 12 months. As Mr Heatherich mentioned, preparing for a disaster, before it occurs, is the cheapest sort of insurance you can provide, and it comes with the additional benefit of providing a greater degree of safety and certainty for staff.
What this improved disaster resilience means for Vanuatu is the ability for DCIR to continue protecting its borders in the face of a disaster and the ability to respond and recover quickly once a disaster has struck.
