SUVA, Feb. 4 (NNN-Xinhua) -- Twenty-five participants from Fiji, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea are in Nadi, Fiji, attending a training on building capacities for early recovery and disaster risk reduction as they are the ones prone to disasters.

The workshop was conducted by specialists from the United Nations Development Program's Bureau of Crisis Prevention and Recovery in Geneva as well as specialists from the UNDP Pacific Center.

When a disaster strikes, the focus is saving peoples' lives and this is why the program has targeted regional workers in that area, the specialists said.

Early recovery is not only about saving lives but also rebuilding lives so that affected populations can return to a normal life as soon as possible, they said.

Therefore, early recovery work together with relief work is based on the priority needs of those affected.

UNDP in the Pacific region has been active in early recovery efforts, by assisting governments in the Pacific region to assess the priority needs of affected populations and to develop frameworks for Early Recovery following major disasters.

Some examples include the floods in Fiji in January last year, the tsunami in Samoa and Tonga in last September, as well as the earthquake and the tsunami in the Solomon Islands in 2007.

The frameworks provide governments with an instrument for developing and financing programs which help rebuild peoples' lives.

The Pacific is one of the most disaster-prone regions in the world, threatened by a variety of natural hazards which are further compounded by the onset of climate change.

Given this situation, UNDP will offer training for government representatives and UNDP staff in the Pacific region in designing and implementing early recovery programs.

The training will highlight the lessons learned from early recovery work including those undertaken in Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and the Solomon Islands.

The workshop started on Wednesday and will end on Friday.--NNN-XINHUA