Aims
and background
Aims of the PPEW
The overall aim of the Platform for the Promotion of Early Warning (PPEW) is “The
reduction of the growing impacts of disasters, through more effective early
warning systems”.
The rationale for creating the platform
Disasters have been increasing over the last three decades, as a result
of more people being more vulnerable and inadequate capacities to deal
with natural hazards and vulnerabilities. Early warning and preparedness
is internationally recognized as a high payoff activity to reduce disaster
impacts, but it needs to be better promoted and more effectively developed,
especially in vulnerable developing countries.
Second International Conference on Early Warning (EWC-II)
This conference, held in Bonn, Germany, 16-18 October 2003, called for
the creation of a platform (organizational capacity) in order to stimulate
and support the development of early warning, to implement the conference’s
policy and program recommendations, and generally to sustain the dialogue
on early warning (see summary
and full reports). Subsequently, the Government
of Germany has supported the ISDR Secretariat to develop the platform
in Bonn.
Early origins
The Bonn Second International Conference on Early Warning was initiated
under the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) as part
of the efforts of the Working
Group 2: Early Warning, of the Inter-Agency
Task Force (IATF) . Other IATF working groups have also made contributions
to the development of early warning, particularly Working
Group 1: Climate and Disasters, which dealt with El Nino issues,
and Working
Group 4: Wildland Fires. Full reports of the IATF working group meetings,
and many background documents may be found under these links. In 1998,
the
International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR),
sponsored the International IDNDR Conference on Early Warning Systems
for Disaster Reduction (EWC ’98),
in Potsdam, Germany.
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