Tonga: Disaster Management Reference Handbook 2023

The Handbook focuses on Tonga’s disaster management framework and disaster risk reduction strategies. It also provides an overview of the country’s government, geography, demographics, socio-cultural practices, and history of natural disasters. The Kingdom of Tonga is a South Pacific archipelago comprised of 176 islands and home to a population of approximately 100,000. The economy is highly exposed to global economic shocks, and its people and domestic production sector are also exposed to natural disasters. Indeed, Tonga’s losses from natural disasters as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product are among the top five in the world. Moreover, climate change is expected to exacerbate these losses. Since 2007, the National Emergency Management Office (NEMO) has been the lead office for coordinating disaster management alongside various domestic and international stakeholders. Among its strategies is to integrate climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation with disaster risk reduction in projects that are inclusive of all of Tongan society, including marginalized and vulnerable groups.

The aim of this handbook is to serve as an initial source of information for individuals preparing for disaster management, response, and risk reduction activities or immediate deployment with Tonga partner responders in a crisis. The country’s disaster management capacity was sorely tested in early 2022 when the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai volcano sent a massive atmospheric pressure wave, a plume of ash, and a series of tsunamis out over Tonga and throughout the region. National and international partners responded with humanitarian relief, but the disaster also abetted the country’s first Coronavirus Disease 2019 outbreak. The United States was among the international partners who responded in early 2022, but even before those events, the U.S. military and civilian agencies had been building relationships with Tongan responders via various programs within the framework of growing U.S. investments of time and resources in the Pacific Islands region.