At the kind invitation of the Government of Samoa, a regional Workshop on Effective Tsunami Disaster Reduction Implementation Progress in Pacific Island Countries and PTWC Proposed Enhanced Products will be held from 12 to 13 July 2012 in Apia, Samoa. This will be followed by the third meeting of the ICG/PTWS Regional Working Group on Tsunami Warning and Mitigation in the South-West Pacific Region (3rd ICG/PTWS-WG SW Pacific) on 14 July 2012 also to be held at the same venue. The Regional Working Group on Tsunami Warning and Mitigation in the South-West Pacific (ICG/PTWS-WG SW Pacific) was extended at the 24th Session of the Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Pacific Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (ICG/PTWS XXIV, Beijing, China) with Ms Filomena Nelson (Samoa) as its Chair and Don Anderson (Australia) as Vice-Chair, and with the following Terms of Reference: 1. To continually review and evaluate capabilities of and make recommendations for improvements to countries in the Southwest Pacific Region for providing end-to-end tsunami warning and mitigation services; 2. To support the involvement and contribution of SWP countries in the activities of the ICG/PTWS; 3. To promote and facilitate the tsunami hazard and risk studies in the SWP region; 4. To facilitate cooperation in the establishment and upgrading of seismic and sea level stations and networks in the region, and the interoperability of these systems in accordance with ICG/PTWS requirements; 5. To facilitate training and capacity building in the end to end tsunami warning and mitigation system in the region; 6. To encourage the sharing of tsunami information in the region, including but not limited to the free and open exchange of data, and 7. To facilitate tsunami awareness in school curricula, and development and dissemination of public educational materials; 8. To work in cooperation with PTWS Working Group 3, especially on activities which strengthen country capacity in tsunami emergency response. The Group is comprised of representatives from Member States and territories of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) as members and observers. The following SPC member countries are UNESCO and or IOC Members : Australia, Cook Is, Fiji, France, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, United Kingdom, United States of America and Vanuatu.

no event notes available