Prepared by UN Country Team, Male', Maldives

Visits and Missions

As part of a regional tour to tsunami affected countries, Mr. Uwe Hain, Deputy Director, IAD/Office of Internal Oversight Services, UN HQ-NY, will be arriving Male' on 19 May to meet with the Resident Coordinator and the UN Country Team to discuss audit modalities for increased transparency and accountability of UN programmes.

UNDP and UNICEF hosted a visit by an ECHO delegation from 12 to 14 April. The delegation visited UNDP project sites in Baa atoll in order to have an overview of activities undertaken so far (for UNICEF, see para. on WES below).

Lessons Learnt Workshop

Pursuant to the recommendation of USG Jan Egeland to tsunami affected countries, a national Lessons Learnt Workshop is scheduled to take place in Male' with the participation of the Government authorities at central and atoll level, UN agencies, bilateral donors, the IFRC and national/international NGOs. The purpose of the workshop is to review all aspects of national and international response to the Tsunami from an in-country perspective in order to draw lessons for the future and better prepare national authorities for improved response coordination in disaster situations. Findings and recommendations will feed into an OCHA regional workshop that is scheduled to take place in Indonesia in the course of June 2005. It will also assist in the formulation of a UN Recovery Strategy and the preparation of a Contingency exercise later in the year.

Food

The Vulnerable Group Feeding Programme has identified 40,296 beneficiaries for the next distribution cycle that is scheduled to start 24 April. Beneficiaries include IDPs, host communities and livelihood groups on affected islands. The food distribution will include rice, pulses, oil and sugar.

A joint WFP/GOM monitoring trip is planned to Meemu and Vaavu Atoll 27-28 April for the Vulnerable Group Feeding Programme.

Water and Environmental Sanitation (WES)

The ECHO delegation came to overview the implementation of the UNICEF-supported health, water and sanitation project funded by ECHO in response to the tsunami disaster in Maldives and to assess the results of the action undertaken for the rehabilitation of the damage suffered. Apart from the meetings held with UNICEF, Maldivian senior government officials and counterparts, they visited five islands to better understand the extent of the damage, see HDPE rainwater collection tanks and reverse osmosis ("RO") plants for water desalination and overview the complexities of drinking water provision in the Maldives. In addition, a visit was paid to Male's Department of Public Health and vaccine and cold chain store damaged in tsunami, as one of the objectives of the ECHO financed project is also to ensure that effective cold chain systems are in place to support immunisation of the affected population against preventable diseases.

Health & Education

UNICEF and UNOPS have reached an agreement on the reconstruction in the education and health sectors in the Maldives, with UNOPS being UNICEF's implementing partner. The project will utilise the Japanese Government's contribution.

The Minister of Education has already submitted the UNOPS school reconstruction project to the National Disaster Management Centre for approval. The same action will be taken with the Ministry of Health.

On 12 and 13 April, the Educational Centre with technical and financial support from UNICEF conducted a two-day workshop for 13 schools headmasters. The objective of the workshop was to brief the heads of schools on the Child Friendly Schools concept and to assess "child friendliness" of their respective schools. Based on the assessment, an action plan was devised for each school highlighting the key areas that would help the schools move towards the child friendly model.

USEFUL WEBSITES

United Nations Maldives Disaster Relief Taskforce: http://202.1.199.67

Maldives National Disaster Management Centre: http://www.tsunamimaldives.mv

OTHER INFORMATION

Field office contact

Aishath Jeelaan, Communications Officer, UN Resident Coordinator System,
Tel: (960) 324501, mob: (960) 787 987; email: aishath.jeelaan@undp.org

Thierry Delbreuve, Senior Humanitarian Affairs Officer, UN Resident Coordinator System
Tel: (960) 324501, mob: (960) 778 971; email: delbreuve@un.org