A South Asia-wide policy dialogue on disaster risk reduction in New Delhi
A South Asia-wide policy dialogue on disaster risk reduction in New Delhi
A South Asia-wide policy dialogue on disaster risk reduction will be held from today and tomorrow in New Delhi. This important regional meeting will bring together government officials, policy makers, academics and other experts involved in disaster risk reduction to assess and identify gaps in existing disaster management policies with a view to develop a roadmap for a responsive and regional disaster risk reduction in South Asia.
The dialogue would be jointly hosted by National Institute of Disaster Management, India, Duryog Nivaran Secretariat, Pakistan, Practical Action - South Asia, Sri Lanka, India Habitat Centre, Knowledge Links, India and UNDP South Asia.
This event is especially relevant for a region that is recovering from two of the worlds worst disasters in recent history. Large numbers of people in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and India are still homeless and without livelihood as the region grapples with the logistics of recovery from the Indian Ocean Tsunami (2004) and the South Asia Quake (2005). As a region, South Asia is often besieged by natural disasters like drought, flood, earthquake, cyclone and recently the tsunami.
It is an initiative to proactively follow-up and optimize the Dhaka Declaration of 13th SAARC Summit held in Bangladesh last year, said the organizing committee. The committee appreciated the inclusion of disaster management related provisions in Dhaka Deceleration; however, there is a lot more to do to translate the concepts of disaster risk reduction into reality, it reiterated. We need to develop national as well as regional mechanisms to integrate initiatives of disaster risk reduction with mainstream development planning, the organizing committee emphasized.
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