United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Oct 2011
InterWorks designed and conducted a two-day simulation activity as implemented at the Annual Pacific Humanitarian Team (PHT) Meeting in Suva, Fiji, October 18-19, 2011. The over-arching objective of the simulation was to improve the capacity of PHT members in international humanitarian response actions in the Pacific, including national NDMO representatives, NGOs, and donors.
The 2-day simulation was designed to model and test disaster preparedness activities, immediate and long-term response actions, and evaluate international coordination activities during a large-scale cyclone event. The simulation was based on a fictional Pacific island country – “Amnesia” – and reflected current issues in disaster preparedness and response from many countries in the Pacific. The core idea was to present a fictional shared experience that would be realistic and reflect current concerns of stakeholders throughout the Pacific region. Within this shared scenario all participants played their own (or similar) roles to the extent possible, and were able to jointly experience and share challenges and dilemmas, as well as best practices related to this shared experience. The Amnesian Islands Simulation was designed over several weeks with inputs from a core team of advisors from the PHT.
