Media plays vital role in disaster preparedness for communities

The media is an important tool to help the weather services disseminate information out to people in the communities and outer islands who need it the most to prepare for natural disasters.

Natural disasters include cyclones, flash floods, strong winds and El Nino.

Finland Pacific (FINPAC) project manager Christina Leala Gale said weather services need to improve on dealing with the media in order to effectively get their weather forecasts out to the communities. 

The FINPAC project is coordinated by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP) on behalf of Pacific Island countries.

The project is funded by the Government of Finland aimed to help Pacific Island countries improve their resilience to climate change through improved national meteorological services.

Gale is part of the meteorological FINPAC project team currently in the country carrying out training for staff from the PNG National Weather Services (PNGNWS) and media personals.

The two-day training from August 23-24, aims to enhance professional relations between the media and meteorology practitioners to bring about more climate information shared to media audiences.

Gale said: “We are happy to be here to work with PNGNWS specifically looking at how it communicates the information that it produces to the communities through the media.

“We are looking at improving the way we deal with the media, how we understand the media and the way they work because they’re a key stakeholder in the work the meteorological services do.

“A lot of times the meteorological service and the media do not talk to each other therefore you do not understand each other so this is an opportunity to learn from each other.”

The FINPAC project also supports the meteorological services in other technical areas like introducing new tools and equipment to build their technical capacity.

Author: 
Quintina Naime