Disaster Recovery Framework - Tropical Cyclone Winston, 20th February 2016.

As it appears from the title, the present document focuses on the recovery of the disaster caused by the Tropical Cyclone (TC) Winston, an extremely destructive Category 5 cyclone striking Fiji on 20th February 2016. The Vision for this Recovery is defined as follows: “A stronger and more resilient Fiji”
For the purposes of this Framework, “recovery” does not mean returning Fiji to how it was just before 20 February 2016. Recovery includes both restoration and enhancement. There will be opportunities during recovery to ‘build back better’ when repairing and reconstructing buildings and infrastructure. These opportunities need to be considered where they lead to increased resilience and/or functionality, or are cost-effective according to life-cycle analysis; provided that they do not come at the expense of the repair or replacement of essential infrastructure and services elsewhere.
In recognition of the share of disaster effects between the public and private sectors, government recovery efforts will be focused on restoring public assets and services, providing assistance and support to affected individuals, households and communities to recover from the disaster and to restore livelihoods and economic activities and increasing resilience to future disasters
This Disaster Recovery Framework (DRF) sets out a Vision and Guiding Principles for medium-term recovery over the next two years (from mid-2016 to mid-2018). In recognition of the long-term nature of recovery and reconstruction, recovery efforts beyond two years will be integrated into Fiji’s National Development Plan. While the programmes and financing presented in this DRF are based the sectoral needs and recovery programmes identified in the PDNA, the figures in this Disaster Recovery Framework are necessarily a sub-set of the overall recovery needs identified in PDNA Table 5.
This DRF will guide the planning and implementation of recovery programmes and projects, providing overall direction to individuals and organizations that have a role in recovery activities including government, the private sector, development partners, civil society and communities. The implementation of the recovery programmes is an opportunity to restore livelihoods, improve lives, upgrade assets, strengthen communities, and lay the foundation for making Fiji more resilient. Recognizing the evolving nature of the recovery effort and the need to revise estimates as new information becomes available and is discussed with implementing agencies and affected people, the detailed recovery Programme will be refined and updated over the coming months.
Given the scale of the impact of TC Winston it will be several years before production and livelihoods can be restored to pre-cyclone levels. Full recovery, and building greater community resilience, will be a long term effort needing well targeted and sequenced assistance to communities. Recovering and rebuilding from the impact of the strongest cyclone to hit Fiji is Government’s priority.
The text deals consists of 5 Parts as follows: Introduction; Vision for the Recovery; A Programmatic Approach to Address Recovery Priorities; Coordination, Implementation and Monitoring; Conclusion and Way Forward. One Appendix is enclosed dealing with disaster Recovery Framework Programme Matrix