By
AsenatiTaugasoloSemu, Press Secretariat of the Government of Samoa: http://www.savalinews.com
9 July
2013, Nadi, Fiji - The CEO
for Samoa’s Ministry of National Resources and Environment is a man on a mission
in Nadi this week.
Chief
Executive Officer, Afioga Taulealeausumai Laavasa Malua is attending the Joint
Meeting of the 2013 Pacific Platform for Disaster Risk Management & Pacific
Climate Change Roundtable being held in Nadi.
The meeting
is to facilitate the on-going discussions between the disaster risk
management and climate change communities in the Pacific.
For
Taulealeausumai, the joint meeting is a viable opportunity to advocate
partnership in all levels in the Pacific.
“I don’t
mean partnership between donors and recipients but partnership from the
grassroot level in villages; between private sector and government ministries;
villages and non government organisations”
The CEO
pointed out some projects funded by his ministry for some NGOs and government
corporations to further prove his point.
“We have
made budget allocations for the local Red Cross Water Tank Projects. We give
them the fund and they implement the project.
“We also
allocated budget for the plumbers association to assist with their capacity
building so that they can assist the community with plumbing needs.”
Taulealeausumai said this is the kind of partnership that directly
helps the community and cater for the shortage of staff at the
Ministry.
“This is to
ensure the good overseeing and monitoring of projects and
programmes.”
The CEO
said discussions and negotiations about partnership has long been practiced in
Samoa.
“From the
discussions I’ve heard so far, it seems that Samoa is way ahead,” said
Taulealeausumai.
“I have
learned from the discussions that the process is heading to where we are in
terms of partnership. I think they all talk about partnership in all different
levels; from the grassroot to the government level. This is why I talked about
partnership during the discussions because we are pushing that theme for the
Small Island Development State meeting in 2014 in Samoa. So starting from here,
we are trying to advocate the importance of partnership.”
Taulealeausumai also pointed out the high level monitoring process
executed by Samoa through its Cabinet Development Committee (CDC) as an example
of a high level monitoring process.
This
committee is chaired by Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi and
comprises all Cabinet Ministers and Chief Executive Officers.
“The
disaster risk management is similar to our national CDC. I hear people here
asking about the process of high level monitoring which is exactly the role of
CDC to monitor, review and follow up on project assigned to Ministries. Just
recently the CDC made a MDG (Millennium Development Goal) review to discuss and
follow up on Ministries that didn’t achieve the MDG.”
About the
ongoing negotiations for the integrated strategy, Taulealeausumai said there are
commonalities in disaster risk management and climate change
“In our
Ministry, we include climate change when implementing projects and programmes on
disaster risk management and vice versa,” said the CEO.
“It’s
important that this meeting should look at the possibilities to either marry the
two sectors and to see if that is effective or co-implement to see if both can
work together. There are many commonalities in the two sectors at the national
level, mainly in the implementation arrangement, but not in the regional
level.”
But
Taulealeausumai was positive about the negotiations and acquiring of
funds.
“Its good
to have the two separate so that donor partners can deal directly with each
sector.”
Taulealeausumai also said the monitoring role of the Forum is very
important.
“I rather
that the central planning is aware and familiar with all the process than not
aware at all,” he said
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