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Platforms for Disaster
Reduction |
By: Luis
Carpio, Director of Transport and Natural Disasters of
the Association of Caribbean States.
"For the cliff is all right, if you’re careful," they said,
"And, if folks even slip and are dropping,
It isn't the slipping that hurts them so much
As the shock down below when they're stopping."
So day after day, as these mishaps occurred,
Quick forth would those rescuers sally
To pick up the victims who fell off the cliff,
With their ambulance down in the valley.
Joseph Malins 1895
The urge to include another stanza from the old poem was
irresistible, as it so well captures our racial bias for the
pound of cure over the ounce of prevention. Shiny, new
helicopters and warehouses full of water and candles will
always seem more sexy to us than, say, baseline assessments.
This is not to say, of course that preparedness is not
crucial, but rather that all stages of the disaster cycle
need to receive appropriate attention if we are to save
lives and reduce the impact of natural phenomena upon our
development.
As reported in the last installment, representatives of more
than 100 governments converged in Geneva from 5th to 6th
June to launch a new United Nations-chaired forum on
disaster reduction aimed at becoming the principal
international consultative group on the issue.
The Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction brings
together governments, the UN and other specialized
organizations, academic institutions, financial
associations, and other civil society groups to tackle
threats posed by natural disasters, including those posed by
climate change and urbanization. According to Sálvano
Briceño, Director of the UN International Strategy for
Disaster Reduction Secretariat “We certainly need to
continue reducing carbon emissions but as global warming is
already here, we need at the same time to find other ways to
reduce the impacts of climate change,”
The main purpose of the meeting was to gauge the level of
success at the national level of the Hyogo Framework of
Action, adopted in 2005. As such, the meeting stressed some
of the main Hyogo themes and reiterated the great need for
advocacy, with clear and consistent messages, to stimulate
awareness and support by politicians, managers, professional
groups, and the general public.
All participants also agreed that disaster risk reduction
must be an integral part of sustainable development
planning. “Good governance, effective planning, courageous
budgeting and implementing policies to prevent human
settlement in hazardous areas are indispensable; we have to
ensure that hospitals, schools, transportation and water
systems are hazard-resilient,” said Briceño. |
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The meeting
recognised that many countries face great challenges in
building their basic institutional capacities, to develop or
revise legislation and policy frameworks, and to implement
national platforms, action plans, and budgets. Other
countries, however, have made considerable progress and have
a wealth of experience. This is particularly true in our
Greater Caribbean region, which is recognised by all to be a
veritable crucible of growing disaster risk, but where an
important number of regional and national bodies stand ready
to bring their expertise to the table whilst managing to
avoid duplication, paralleling and overlapping of
initiatives.
This cooperation will allow all counties in the Greater
Caribbean to, among many other things, establish systems to
monitor and report on their risk profiles and on the
implementation of the Hyogo Framework, including best
practice codes, verifiable indicators, benchmarks and
targets, in order to guide action and improve accountability
for results. The most important regional effort towards this
goal will be the Greater Caribbean conference on disaster
reduction to be held in Haiti from 14-16 November 2007 which
was officially announced by the Haitian Delegation in
Geneva.
The purpose of the conference is to exchange experiences,
lessons learnt and best practices in the areas of natural
disaster risk reduction, mitigation and recovery within the
region, as well as determine areas of intra-regional
co-operation in all three areas, which will inform a Plan of
Action for regional Cooperation in the Greater Caribbean to
be adopted by the meeting. |
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