Mr David Idip, Senior GIS Analyst, Office of the Palau Automated Land and Resource Information System (PALARIS);

His Excellency Karasawa Akira, Ambassador of Japan to Palau;

Director of National Emergency Management Office, Waymine Towai

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Ungil Tutau

Ohayō GozaimasuGood morning to you all.

I am delighted to join our partners in Palau to mark an important milestone at the official launch of the LiDAR survey. The LiDAR stands for Light Detection and Ranging. It is an aerial digital terrestrial or coastal survey using state-of-the-art remote sensing LiDAR technology.

The LiDAR survey aims to support the island vulnerability assessment work led by the Office of the Palau Automated Land and Resource Information System or PALARIS. The necessary equipment is also being provided to PALARIS, which include two vehicles to support additional data collection activities and assessments, and four laptops and five desktop computers to manage data expected from the study.

The LiDAR survey will mark Palau’s first-ever nationwide digital survey initiative and I would like to highlight that this is a significant step towards enhancing Palau’s disaster and climate resilience. I congratulate the Government of Palau and PALARIS for your innovative undertaking and thank you for your strong partnership and leadership particularly in this area of sustainable development at national, regional and global level.

EDCR project

The support to PALARIS to conduct a vulnerability and resource mapping using LiDAR system is expected to help enhance national and state disaster preparedness capacity as part of the Enhancing Disaster and Climate Resilience in the Republic of Palau through Improved Disaster Preparedness and Infrastructure project. The project is funded by the Government of Japan and implemented by the United Nations Development Programme in partnership with the Government of Palau.

The project aims to strengthen Palau’s resilience to man-made, geo-physical and climate-related hazards by achieving these three results:

1.    Strengthened disaster communication, climate and tsunami monitoring systems;

2.    Enhanced national and state disaster preparedness capacity; and

3.    Enhanced community disaster and climate resilience through improved water and food resource management, inclusive livelihood diversification.

I thank the generous support and continuing partnership of the Government of Japan through the EDCR project. Your support and partnership enable us to work with Palau to enhance their disaster and climate resilience by improving preparedness and infrastructure.

DRR and SIDS

Disaster risk reduction (DRR) is an integral part of social and economic development and is essential if development is to be sustainable for the future. UNDP’s disaster risk reduction efforts aim for ‘risk-informed’ development in line with the goals and targets of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

Disaster risk management is particularly crucial for Small Island Developing States or SIDS like Palau. SIDS have been at the forefront of a large range of climate change impacts and potentially more frequent and intense weather and climatic events. These threats have often devasted social and economic conditions and activities of states and people. 

Systematic assessments of complex threats and risks, opportunities and options based on accurate data and study is key to increasing resilience and sustainability. The LiDAR terrestrial or coastal survey will enable Palau to conduct comprehensive assessment with accurate aerial digital data. The data and analysis made through the LiDAR survey will also be used as a baseline for shoreline monitoring, resource management and environmental monitoring needs, and inform Palau’s climate change adaptation strategy.

Partnerships

Strong partnerships and cooperation are of paramount importance to achieve risk informed sustainable development in SIDS as we emphasized at the Third International Conference on SIDS held in Apia, Samoa, in September 2014. Paragraph 98 under the ‘Partnership’ section says, “We recognize that, given the vulnerabilities and the need to build the resilience of small island developing States, and keeping in mind the theme of the third International Conference on Small Island Developing States, there is an urgent need to strengthen international cooperation and ensure genuine and durable partnerships at the national, regional and international levels to address issues related to their sustainable development priorities and needs.”

I am confident that the cooperation and partnerships developed through this project are one of the achievements aimed at the Conference and contributing to Palau’s sustainable development priorities and needs.

I congratulate again the people and the Government of Palau for this innovative initiative towards the country’s enhanced resilience to disasters and impact of climate change.

Thank you.

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The speech was delivered by EDCR Project Manager for UNDP, Aleyda Valdes, on behalf of Levan Bouadze, Resident Representative for the UNDP Pacific Office in Fiji.