Fostering a sense of inclusion around disaster risk reduction in the Pacific
Many Pacific Island countries are located along the Pacific Ring of Fire, making them prone and vulnerable to an increased risk of natural disaster. The region also faces many other challenges on the journey to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Most islands are heavily dependent on tourism as their main source of economic income, women are severely under-represented in politics and gender-based violence is prevalent. Disaster-related data collection and management in many of these countries also has significant potential for improvement.
UN Volunteer Yo Kunieda supported the work of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) in Fiji from March 2020 to March 2021. Her main contributions centred on a Small Island Developing States (SIDS) project, which supports small islands to better manage disaster and climate risk.
Working with smallholders to tackle food insecurity in Zambia
In landlocked Zambia, close to 60 per cent of households engage in some form of agricultural activity, much of it for their own consumption. Yet, the contribution of agricultural production to the gross domestic product has been steadily declining, from 24 per cent in the year 2000, to just 2.6 per cent in 2019. Closely related to an increase in climactic events and pest and disease incursions, Zambia is now anticipating further repercussions on agricultural productivity due to the impact of COVID-19 throughout the food value-chain.
For Zambians, food insecurity is an urgent issue. Around 18 per cent of the country’s rural population require urgent action to protect their livelihoods. A further 15 per cent are only marginally able to meet their food needs, while three per cent of the country’s 17.8m people are already facing considerable food gaps.