12th Pacific Regional Disaster Management Meeting
Madang, Papua New Guinea, 6-8 June
The SOPAC island member national disaster managers from the
Cook Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, the
Marshall Islands, Niue, Papua New Guinea, the Republic of
Palau, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu
attended the 12th Pacific Regional Disaster Management Meeting
from 6 – 8 June 2005 in Madang, Papua New Guinea. Representatives
from Australia and New Zealand were also present. The theme
was “Investment for Sustainable Development: Building
the Resilience of Nation’s and Communities to Disaster”,
which focused on the Draft Pacific Framework for Action 2005-2015,
modeled closely on the Hyogo Framework and designed to reflect
the special needs of the Pacific Small Islands Development
State (SIDS).
The meeting also established the Guiding Principles for
the Draft Framework for Action, which will contribute to
the Pacific Islands Forum leaders vision and the achievement
of their national development goals. The SOPAC Governing
Council (20-30 September 2005 in Samoa) and the Pacific Islands
Forum leaders will be requested to consider and endorse the
Draft Framework for Action.
The SOPAC Governing Council and the Pacific Islands Forum
leaders are requested to consider and endorse the Draft Framework
for Action 2005-2015. In order to achieve it, they agreed
to accelerate the implementation of disaster risk reduction
and disaster management policies in their countries. They
will develop and strengthen disaster risk reduction and disaster
management, including preparedness, response and relief/recovery
systems; they will integrate disaster risk reduction and
disaster management into national sustainable development
planning and decision-making processes at all levels; and
will strengthen effective partnerships between all stakeholders
in disaster risk reduction and disaster management.
For more information visit the following website: http://www.sopac.org/
Second International World Conference on Climate Centre,
Hague, 21-24 June
The Red Cross / Red Crescent Climate Centre held its 2nd
International World Conference on Climate Change and Disaster
Risk Reduction, 21-24 June in the Hague. The meeting brought
together over 100 practitioners integrating climate change
concerns in disaster risk reduction as well as experts from
the disaster reduction and the climate change fields. Participants
discussed community-based climate adaptation/disaster risk
reduction programmes; methods and tools for climate risk
reduction; financing weather and climate related risks; and
linking local community climate risk reduction programmes
with national and international policies.
The ISDR secretariat presented the work of the IATF Working
Group on Risk Assessment (WG3) highlighting UN-Habitat's
contribution (in collaboration with UNDP and ADPC) of a web
portal of disaster risk assessment tools. Collaboration between
ProVention Consortium, the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change, the ISDR secretariat and others developing tool compendiums
was promoted to avoid the duplication of efforts and for
the preparation of a paper on tools, as agreed by the IATF
Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction Working Group
led by WMO and UNDP.
For more information visit the following website: http://www.climatecentre.org/
Third International Early Warning Conference (EWCIII, Bonn,
March 2006)
Discussions have continued in June with the German Foreign
Ministry and the German Disaster Reduction Committee, DKKV,
on preparations for the EWC III. The conference is convened
by Germany under the auspices of the United Nations and will
take place on 27-29 March 2006 at the former Bundestag in
Bonn. It is planned to be opened by the German Foreign Minister
and the UN USG for Humanitarian Affairs. The conference will
aim at launching a number of specific projects on early warning,
concentrating on high-priority countries and issues. The
projects should focus on tailored comprehensive national
early warning projects, and priority themes for global early
warning advancement initiatives. This approach will advance
regional and international cooperation, in line with the
Hyogo Framework for Action.
It is expected that the Conference should attract the interest
of intergovernmental spheres, both in the diplomatic and
technical areas, of practitioners and experts in disaster
risk reduction and early warning, and of the scientific community.
For more information please go to: http://www.ewc3.org
UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission
Twenty-third Session of the Assembly, Paris, 21-30 June
The IOC Assembly which took place in Paris, 21-30 June was
an important opportunity to further advance the establishment
of the early warning system in the Indian Ocean, by setting
up a formal Intergovernmental Coordination Group to manage
detailed policies and plans for the Indian ocean tsunami
warning and mitigation system. A detection system to warn
of tsunamis like the one that devastated the coasts of South
Asia and Africa last December will be operational by July
2006. UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission
(IOC) announced that Indian Ocean states would meet in Perth,
Australia, 3 August to coordinate the system's implementation.
For more information on the IOC assembly go to: http://ioc.unesco.org
Workshops at Bangkok on the role of media in education and
disaster prevention, Bangkok, 13-16 June
The Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU), a professional
association of 102 radio and television broadcasters in the
Asia-Pacific region, together with the ISDR secretariat,
ESCAP, ADPC, with support by EC/ECHO, organized two media
workshops in Bangkok on 13 - 16 June. 30 broadcasters coming
from the tsunami affected countries including Tanzania and
Somalia were present. The first workshop, 13–14 June,
was more technical in nature and involved technical, news
and programming directors from broadcast companies and operational
directors from meteorological, oceanographic and geographic
organizations. The participants reviewed the rate and accuracy
in getting information from meteorological, oceanographic
and geographic organizations to broadcasters and clearly
identified a communication gap between them and the met services
people. The second workshop addressed education and public
awareness issues and made the commitment to develop more
projects on disaster reduction targeting women and children
audiences. Their works will be presented at The International
Day for Disaster Reduction on 12 October 2005.
Seminar Workshop for National Authorities: Risk Management
Policies, Systems and Experiences in the Caribbean, Havana,
Cuba, 1-3 June
Representatives of 13 member countries of the Association
of Caribbean States (ACS), the United Nations System, the
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies,
and CDERA, met at the “Seminar Workshop for National
Authorities: Risk Management Policies, Systems and Experiences
in the Caribbean” held in, Havana, Cuba, 1-3 June,
2005 as part of the regional efforts to implement the Hyogo
Framework in wider Caribbean. Jan Egeland (Under-Secretary-General
for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator),
Elena Martinez (UNDP Regional Director for LAC) and many
of the UN Resident Coordinator/Resident Representative from
ACS member countries were among the high level representatives
attending this meeting. The Seminar was organized by the
ACS in collaboration with the Cuban Civil Defense, UN-OCHA,
UNDP and UN/ISDR.
The meeting focused
on a) developing training on risk and disaster management,
strengthening exchange and cooperation
and developing further alliances amongst the countries and
institutions of the region with support from the United Nations,
Cooperation Agencies and other regional initiatives for the
purpose of improving national capabilities to reduce the
impact of natural hazards; and, b) improving the integration
of the international disaster response and response preparedness
efforts into the national and regional disaster coordination
mechanisms and procedures, in preparation to the 2005 Caribbean
hurricane season. The outcomes of the meeting are reflected
in a document called “Havana Consensus” that
is being reviewed by ACS member countries for final approval
and public dissemination. For more information please consult
the website of the ACS: http://www.acs-aec.org
Setting-up of Senegal National Platform on Disaster Prevention,
Dakar, 1-3 June
More than 30 participants gathered at a national workshop
on disaster reduction in Dakar, Senegal on 1-3 June 2005.
This workshop was organised by the ISDR office in Africa,
in close collaboration with the Government and the United
Nations Country Team (UNCT). The purpose of the workshop
was to strengthen national mechanisms dealing with DRR, adopting
a multisectorial and multidisciplinary approach.
High-level representatives from different Ministries, from
the Prime Minister office and the Parliament, and members
from the private sector, the civil society and NGOs attended
the meeting. Members of the UNCT such as UNDP, OCHA, ILO
and UNESCO provided also a strong contribution to the workshop.
Participants came up with concrete proposals and identified
priority areas for Senegal, which were very close to the
ones defined in the Hyogo Framework.
ISDR strongly supported the workshop and provided a number
of tools, methodologies and guidelines to implement disaster
reduction policies in the national agenda. The principle
of having a national multisectorial and multidisciplinary
platform to better coordinate with key disaster management
partners has been agreed on and Senegal is now moving ahead
with some concrete proposals towards the implementation of
the Hyogo Framework.
The First African Advisory Group on Disaster Risk Reduction,
Nairobi, 10-11 June
Convened by the ISDR secretariat and with African Union and
five countries (Senegal, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, and
Uganda), the African Advisory Group was established. This
initiative aims to mobilize political commitment and link
the national needs and concerns with the UN assistance in
disaster risk reduction in Africa, and to carry out advocacy
activities at higher level.
Expert Missions to Indian Ocean Countries to Assess Requirements
and Capacity for an Effective and Durable National Tsunami
Warning and Mitigation System
The IOC/UNESCO led multidisciplinary assessment team is
composed of five members (an IOC governance person, a WMO
representative,
an ISDR representative, a tsunami warning expert and a tsunami
response expert) and has started to visit 17 countries in
the region and will be finalized by the end of August. The
first mission was for Sri Lanka (19-21 May 2005), and in
June a mission was sent to Myanmar and Pakistan (9–15
June), and the other mission was sent to Kenya, Somalia,
Tanzania, Oman, Seychelles (6–17 June).
Strategic Planning Meeting of the UN Disaster Management
Training Programme (UN/DMTP), Geneva, 20-21 June
The ISDR contributed to the formulation and composition
of the Meeting, organized by UNDP/BCPR, Geneva 20-21 June.
This
important strategic Meeting brought together a diverse collection
of 25 capacity development individual professionals and selected
organizations from within and beyond the UN system, from
the five continents. The purpose of the meeting was to seek
common ground and productive initial relationships to consider
a later, expanded “Future Search” (methodology)
Meeting to develop specific action areas that could systematically
address enhanced, multiple commitments to capacity-building
in furtherance of Hyogo Framework objectives. The result
of this initial discussion is to plan for an expanded Meeting
of capacity-building practitioners scheduled for December
2005 in a joint collaboration among ISDR-UNDP/BCPR-UN System
Staff Training College in Turin, Italy. The renewed DMTP
could become one of the main pillars for the implementation
of the Hyogo Framework in particular to support needs of
national platforms. It is expected to develop into a substantive
collaboration between UNDP-ISDR secretariats.
Dialogue on millennium development goals and disaster risk
reduction
In September 2005, world leaders will meet again in New York
for a summit to review the MDGs. In January 2005, the World
Conference on Disaster Reduction called for a stronger link
between internationally agreed development goals and disaster
risk reduction. The ISDR Secretariat is hosting an online
dialogue on the mainstreaming of Disaster Risk Reduction
into strategies to attain the Millenium Development Goals.
The dialogue opens on the 12th of July and will continue
for a period of three weeks.
The objective of the online conference is to provide a forum
to exchange views on how disaster risk reduction should be
better represented in the Millennium Development Goals; both
for the current targets and the indicators as well as to
identify how the MDGs can be closer linked to the implementation
of the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015.
For more information please go to: http://www.unisdr.org/mdgs-drr
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