The Pacific representative of UN Human Rights Offices is hoping to make a critical contribution to enhancing the knowledge and understanding of the management of natural disasters and humanitarian emergencies and the development of long-term programming capacity building.

While addressing the Pacific Disaster Management Workshop, Heike Alefsen says that humanitarian crises caused by conflicts and natural disasters invariably result in human rights challenges.

She adds that the forefront of the triple planetary crisis of biodiversity loss, climate change, and pollution not only poses human rights risks to the countries but also poses existential risks to atoll nations and islands.

“The impact of disasters very frequently threatens the effective enjoyment of a range of human rights, including the right to life, the right to an adequate standard of living, including housing, water, food, health, the right to education, the right to be free from violence, the right to information, the right to an effective remedy, the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, and more broadly, the right to development.”

Alefsen says that a recent study from the United Nations Development Program states that the Pacific countries will not be reaching any of the SDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals, by 2030.

She adds that they will continue to work in alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework to strengthen the capacity of civil societies through this workshop.