Fiji Post-Disaster Needs Assessment March 2013 Tropical Cyclone Evan, 17th December 2012 Government of Fiji ACP-EU Natural Disaster Risk Reduction Program An initiative of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group, funded by the European Union and managed by GFDRR DISCLAIMER Estimates are based on official Government of Fiji data. Published by: Applied Geoscience and Technology Division, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC-SOPAC) 2013 Layout by: Sailesh Kumar Sen SPC-SOPAC Division Cover photo: www.facebook.com/bulatime Available from: Ministry of Strategic Planning, Applied Geoscience and Technology Division (SOPAC) National Development & Statistics Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) P O Box 2351 Private Mail Bag Government Buildings GPO Suva Suva Fiji Fiji Telephone: +679 331 3411 Telephone: +679 338 1377 Fax: +679 3304 809 Fax: +679 337 0040 E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] www.plannng.gov.fj www.sopac.org Fiji Post-Disaster Needs Assessment Tropical Cyclone Evan, 17th December 2012 Government of Fiji March 2013 Post-Disaster Needs Assessment Contents FOREWORD....................................................................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.................................................................................................................................................... iii ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIatIONS.................................................................................................................................. iv LIST OF TABLES................................................................................................................................................................. v LIST OF FIGURES.............................................................................................................................................................. vi EXECUTIVE SUMMARY...................................................................................................................................................... vii 1. INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Overview of Tropical Cyclone (TC) Evan............................................................................................................................... 2 1.2 Socio-Economic context of Fiji............................................................................................................................................. 2 1.3. Response of Government and Development Partners.......................................................................................................... 3 1.4 The Post Disaster Needs Assessment Methodology............................................................................................................ 5 2. MACROECONOMIC IMPACT......................................................................................................................................... 6 2.1 Summary of Total Effect....................................................................................................................................................... 7 2.2 Pre Disaster Economic Outlook........................................................................................................................................... 8 2.3 Post Disaster Impact........................................................................................................................................................... 9 2.4 Affected Population and Labour Force................................................................................................................................. 11 2.5 Social Impact Assessment................................................................................................................................................... 14 3. DAMAGE AND LOSS...................................................................................................................................................... 18 3.1 Housing Sector.................................................................................................................................................................... 19 3.2 Health Sector....................................................................................................................................................................... 23 3.3 Education Sector................................................................................................................................................................. 26 3.4 Agriculture........................................................................................................................................................................... 29 3.5 Tourism Sector..................................................................................................................................................................... 37 3.6 Commerce Sector................................................................................................................................................................ 39 3.7 Infrastructure Sector............................................................................................................................................................. 41 4. CROSS CUTTING ISSUES............................................................................................................................................. 54 4.1 Gender................................................................................................................................................................................. 55 4.2 Environment........................................................................................................................................................................ 56 5. DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT................................................................................................................................... 58 6. RECOVERY AND RECONSTRUCTION NEEDS............................................................................................................. 66 ANNEXES........................................................................................................................................................................... 75 Annex 1......................................................................................................................................................................................... 76 Annex 2 to 10 enclosed on CD BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................................................................................................................................................. 77 FIJI PDNA Tropical Cyclone Evan, 17th December 2012 i Post-Disaster Needs Assessment Foreword On 17th December 2012 Tropical Cyclone Evan struck Fiji causing widespread destruction to property and infrastructure, disrupted economic activity bringing sorrow to tens of thousands of fellow citizens. Many lost their livelihoods, their shelter and their belongings. They endured great misery to weather the cyclone, to ensure the safety of their dear ones, and secure or recover their possessions. They also displayed great resilience in the face of adversity, and great determination to take stock of damage, get back on their feet, and build back better. Fortunately, no lives were lost. We can say that Government’s investment to increase disaster preparedness and mitigation measures to pre-position and distribute relief material efficiently, and to coordinate response effectively with local and international partners has been a worthwhile investment. We, in Government, are intent on building on these achievements and on deploying additional efficiency and effectiveness tools to help us assess the impact of national disasters and prioritize rehabilitation activities. At the same time, we recognize that each disaster is an opportunity to improve our collective skills and the way we collect, process, and interpret data to inform our response. We are certainly not new to conducting damage assessments in the aftermath of a disaster, when humanitarian concerns are at the top of the government’s relief and response agenda. Initial assessments may, at times, be imperfect but they are absolutely instrumental to shape response and enable us to effectively engage with each other within government and with our partners. Long term recovery and rehabilitation, however, often requires us to go back to the drawing board and take a fresh look at the impact of disaster in order to answer questions such as: What sectors of our economy were hit the hardest? What can we say authoritatively about cost of lost production in the manufacturing or agricultural sector, disruption to market trading, or loss of environmental assets? And just as importantly, if not more so, who among our citizens was hit the hardest, and whose resilience is compromised the most? To address these questions we need a whole-of-government approach that assesses the effect of disasters at the sector level. With this objective in mind, we chose to pursue a post-disaster needs assessment (PDNA) – the first assessment of its kind in Fiji. In the PDNA we have a credible, rigorous and globally recognized standard methodology. It enables us to take