Paper details
| Paper authors | Amelia Makutu |
| In panel on | Implementing the Grand Bargain on the ground: Lessons and Reflections from the Pacific |
| Paper presenter(s) will be presenting |
In-Person / |
Abstract
Ms. Vani Catanasiga heads the Fiji Council of Social Services (FCOSS) a national CSO platform that was established in the 1960s to represent CSO voices to government on social development issues. FCOSS is a key actor in the national humanitarian sector one of only two CSOs that are members of the National Disaster Management Council. FCOSS is also the co-chair of the Communications Community Engagement Working Group that is a sub group of the Communications Cluster, one of the nine members of Fiji’s Disaster Management Cluster adopted to improve coordination.
Ms Catanasiga will speak about the FCOSS and civil society experience in responding to the first and second wave of COVID-19 in Fiji. She will also cover the importance of communications and coordination in an emergency such as the pandemic and how civil society responded to communities despite widespread misinformation, mistrust in vaccination and the public health system. She will also and how public relations overtook messaging and the effects on vulnerable communities.
She will also speak on how FCOSS and a collective of civil society organisations rose to occasion and supplemented government’s assistance in a coordinated and localised approach.
Presenters
CDAC Network