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AUDMP
Asian Urban Disaster Mitigation News - April 2002
This month's issue includes
the following features:
Should you wish to receive
the News by e-mail please send a message to the AUDMP Information
and Networking Coordinator at ccapikul@ait.ac.th
Please
click here to go to AUDMP monthly activity highlights
AUDMP's 7th Working Group Meeting puts 'Social Marketing' in the limelight
The 7th Annual Working Group Meeting of the Asian Urban Disaster Mitigation Program (AUDMP), co-hosted by the
Institute of Technology Bandung during 19-21 March 2002 in Bandung, Indonesia highlighted the culture of prevention
by introducing ‘social marketing’ concept to be combined with disaster mitigation. More than 50 participants from nine
AUDMP project countries, USAID and ADPC staff participated in the meeting.
The theme of this year’s working group meeting is ‘Public
Awareness for Urban Disaster Mitigation’, according to
AUDMP’s endeavor to cultivate the culture of prevention in
disaster mitigation, which requires creative and innovative
approaches to disseminate this message and to make it an
integral part of the overall planning process, targeting
especially communities in disaster-prone countries.
In an attempt to form a working model for public awareness
promotion in disaster mitigation, the experiences of some
project partners, which have integrated public awareness
activities in their project implementation, were showcased and
critiqued. The attempt was also reinforced by the introduction
of ‘Social Marketing’ concept as a tool for public awareness
promotion by resource person Professor Jyotika Ramaprasad,
Associate Dean of College of Mass Communication and
Media Arts, Southern Illinois University, USA.
At the meeting, participants also discussed issues pertaining to activities, methodologies and processes that were
initiated by the country projects and the challenges ahead in mainstreaming disaster mitigation as part of urban
development and planning. Experiences from partners in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Nepal and Sri Lanka
demonstrate that much remains to be done to mainstream disaster mitigation and put into practice arrangements and
actions that will reduce the social and economic impact of disasters. The need for a stronger national commitment to
disaster reduction, including the necessary political will and legal framework, was addressed by the presenters.
In making disaster mitigation a mainstream activity, it was
emphasized that continued inter-disciplinary and cross-cutting
partnership-building at all levels among scientific and social
organizations, governments, the private sector, the media, NGOs,
academic institutes and international organizations, is
fundamental. Public awareness and commitment of both public
and private sector decision-makers constitute an effective means
for its implementation.
The meeting also provided an opportunity for AUDMP partners to
prepare for the ‘AUDMP Regional Lessons Learned Workshop’
scheduled in September 2002, which will provide a forum for
networking and interacting to share and exchange knowledge on
‘lessons learned’ emerging from the implementation of national
demonstration projects.
For more
information on Social Marketing, please click here.
Various
visions for Thailand’s new DM agency shared at
seminar on ‘Institutional Arrangements for Total Risk Management’ organized by ADPC
More than 150 representatives from Thailand’s
government organizations responsible for disaster management attended a one and a half day
high-level seminar on ‘Institutional Arrangements for Total Risk Management’ organized by ADPC in
collaboration with the Ministry of Interior, the Royal Thai Government during 3-4 April 2002 at the United
Nations Conference Center, Bangkok. The seminar was an effort to assist the Thai government in
establishing a new agency dealing with disaster reduction, which is scheduled to become operational by
October 2002.
“We view this seminar as an opportunity to share U.S. and regional strategies in disaster
mitigation for urban and rural populations. The timing is excellent as the Royal Thai Government is currently in the
process of restructuring its disaster management organizations. This seminar will illustrate lessons learned from other Asian nations and the U.S., and provide ideas
to assist Thailand as it works to develop a stronger management system," said H.E. Ambassador Darryl N. Johnson, U.S. Ambassador to Thailand, at the opening ceremony.
International experts and practitioners in the field of
total risk management made presentations on models of total risk management used in their
countries. They included Mr. Thomas Brennan, Senior Regional Advisor, USAID Office of Foreign
Disaster Assistance; Mr. David Templeman, Director General, Emergency Management Australia;
Dr. Neil Britton, EQTAP Chief Coordinator and Former Manager of Sector Development Unit, Ministry for
Emergency Management, New Zealand; and Major General Melchor P. Rosales, Administrator Office of
Civil Defense, Department of National Defense, Philippines.
The concept of 4’Rs in total risk management, namely
readiness, relief, rehabilitation and reduction, was discussed throughout the seminar. The new disaster
management paradigm shifting from response and relief to readiness and reduction was extensively discussed and unanimously supported. Other major
highlight inputs solicited from participants also included budget allocation, systematic integration of information,
self-reliance and awareness promotion.
Mr. David Templeman reinforced that changing
mindsets of people about disaster management is necessary and prerequisite. “It is important to make the most of disasters in
promoting awareness on the importance of preparedness and mitigation,” he said.
The seminar significantly
produced many insightful inputs, which are useful for establishing the new
agency. It is strongly anticipated that the new agency would cover all
aspects of disaster management in lieu of focusing on relief and
rehabilitation alone. This vision would eventually result in long-term
solutions for disaster management.
The comments and concerns regarding disaster
management in Thailand raised by participants during the seminar will also be taken into account for
integrating into the AUDMP’s Thailand project, which will begin later this year.
ADPC to co-organize the 4th General Assembly of the Asian Seismological Commission
ADPC will co-organize the Fourth General Assembly
of the Asian Seismological Commission (ASC) with the National Society for Earthquake Technology-Nepal
(NSET), to be held in Kathmandu on 24 November 2002.
ASC is a regional scientific organization affiliated with
the International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth’s Interior (IASPEI). It serves as a
platform to bring together experts in seismology and its related disciplines to mitigate earthquake disasters in the Asia-Pacific region. ASC has met twice
since its first meeting, in 1998 and 2000 in Iran and India respectively.
The Assembly will be followed by a three-day
Symposium on Seismology, Earthquake Hazard Assessment and Risk Management to be held
during 24-26 November. As a major contribution to the event, ADPC in partnership with the National Society
for Earthquake technology-Nepal (NSET-Nepal) will offer a shortened version of the AUDMP training course
on Earthquake Vulnerability Reduction in Cities (EVRC) as a pre-symposium training course from 18-22 November.
The Symposium and the EVRC course are both
fee-based.
The registration fee for the Symposium is US$200.00.
For details on abstract submission and registration,
please contact Ms Neo Chee Szu or Ms Neeva Upreti, NSET-Nepal at asc@nset.org.np or visit the website
at http://safe.nset.org.np/ASC2002/
Bangladesh celebrates the 5th National
Disaster Preparedness Day 2002
31 March 2002 saw hundreds of Bangladeshi people
celebrating the 5th National Disaster Preparedness Day 2002 organized by respective Municipality Disaster
Management Committees, CARE-Bangladesh and its partner NGOs and different educational institutes. This
occasion was created due to an attempt of the CARE Bangladesh and the Gana Unnayan Kendra (GUK),
AUDMP partners implementing the Bangladesh Urban Disaster Mitigation Project (BUDMP).
The National Disaster Preparedness day has been
celebrated since the Bangladeshi Government decided in 1998 to mark this special occasion on the last working day in March of each year in an effort
promote public awareness in disaster preparedness among people from grass-roots to national level.
This year’s theme was ‘Preparedness: Key to Disaster
Reduction”. Many activities were organized both to educate and to entertain participants. These included
rallies, discussion meetings, art competitions, essay competitions, debate competitions, drama and folk
songs and cultural functions in Tongi and Gaibandha, which are BUDMP’s target cities.
At the theme discussion meeting, participants
provided valuable recommendations with a view to raise awareness through community mobilization in
disaster management.
Bangladesh faces devastating effect of natural
disasters, including floods, cyclones, river erosion, earthquakes and drought due to its location in a
geographical area prone to natural disasters. By the same token, Bangladesh is also more than most
countries around the world aware that thousands of lives can be saved by timely initiatives of disaster
mitigation and preparedness. Through the National Disaster Preparedness Day campaign, messages on
disaster preparedness get across to the project’s target audience as well as increases and maintains
people’s awareness to act ahead of disasters, which is the best way to reduce disasters.
ADPC to organize the first
Regional Training Course on Earthquake Vulnerability Reduction for Cities
The first Regional Training Course on Earthquake
Vulnerability Reduction for Cities (EVRC-1) will be conducted during 20-31 May 2002 in Kathmandu, Nepal.
After the EVRC Curriculum Workshop recently held by
ADPC in March 2002, the Earthquakes and Megacities Initiative (EMI) has offered to be one of the
co-organizers for EVRC-1. EMI is an international not-for-profit scientific non-governmental organization
dedicated to the acceleration of earthquake preparedness, mitigation and recovery of large urban areas.
ADPC plans to provide fellowship on a competition
basis for participants from earthquake-prone cities in the AUDMP project countries. The identified cities
include Sylehet of Bangladesh, Ahmedabad and Nainital of India, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur of Nepal,
Marikina of the Philippines and Bengkulu, Manado, Denpasar and Palu Municipalities of Indonesia.
The course has also attracted a lot of interests from
many organizations working in this field. Both government and non-government organizations from
countries in the Asia-Pacific region, including USAID Bangladesh, World Vision Bangladesh, Church’s
Auxiliary for Social Action-India, will be attending the course.
The course is still open for registration. The course fee
is US$2,000 per participant. Costs of books and materials are included in the fee.
If you are interested in participating in this course,
please contact Dr. Buddhi Werasingha at buddhiwe@ait.ac.th
What is 'Social Marketing'?
The concept of ‘Social Marketing’ was introduced at the recent 7th AUDMP’s Working Group Meeting in Bandung, Indonesia.
Many disaster professionals may not yet have a clear understanding of what social marketing actually is or its application for
disaster mitigation. To provide additional background information on this new topic, AUDM News presents a series of three
‘Social Marketing’ features, starting from this month on ‘What is ‘Social Marketing’? The other two features on ‘Elements of
social marketing’ and ‘Social marketing for disaster mitigation’ will be published in the May and June issues, respectively.
Amongst many elements of social issue campaigns, public awareness is nowadays deemed as the most important
central element. Public awareness promotion activity has become a key integral component for a success of every
campaign. This is because it is the key factor that generates interest and enthusiasm among people towards a
specific topic that campaigners want to communicate in the beginning stage. From then on, it will form a will to
maintain that interest in the following stages.
Social marketing was introduced as a discipline for raising public awareness and influencing changes in the 1970s by
Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman. They suggested that the same commercial marketing principles could be applied to
social issues, where it could be called ‘social marketing’. Instead of selling profit-making products to consumers, the
same marketing disciplines can be used to sell ideas, attitudes and behaviors. Kotler and Andreasen define social
marketing as “differing from other areas of marketing only with respect to the objectives of the marketer and his or her
organization. Social marketing seeks to influence social behaviors not to benefit the marketer, but to benefit the target
audience and the general society.” Social marketing has been extensively used in topics like health, environment,
drug abuse and other social concerns.
Despite some similarities, the concept of social marketing is more complex than traditional commercial marketing.
While commercial marketing offers ‘tangible’ benefits in an exchange of money (such as toothbrushes, cars, shirts,
etc.) social marketing, in contrast, does not involve economic considerations. It offers ‘intangible’ and rather abstract
products (such as idea of anti-smoking and recommended practice of how to prevent yourself from sex-transmitted
diseases) under complex economic, social and political settings with often very limited resources. Furthermore,
commercial marketing’s ultimate goal is to meet stakeholder objectives but for social marketer the challenging bottom
line is to meet society’s desire to improve its citizens’ quality of life.
Since social marketing neither provides tangible products nor produces immediate and obvious benefits to consumers,
its exchange is based on voluntary behavior rather than commercial motivation. To facilitate voluntary exchange, social marketers need to offer people what
they really want.
Catch next month's issue of AUDM News for more details on the topic of social marketing's
elements, which are
important factors for consideration when planning social marketing strategies.
Additional references:
- "Intersector Transfer
of Marketing Knowledge" by Andreasen, R. Alan (www.social-marketing.org/papers/intersectortransfer.html)
- Indiana Prevention Resource
Center's Prevention Newsline (www.drugs.indiana.edu/publications/iprc/newsline/winter92.html)
- "Social Marketing: A
Synopsis by the Centre for Social Marketing" by MacFadyen,
Lynn et al., 1999 (www.csm.strath.ac.uk/smchapter.html)
- "Social
Marketing" (www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hppb/socialmarketing/sm.html)
- "The Social Marketing
Concept" by Novartis Foundation for Sustainable Development (www.novartisfoundation.com/leprosy/social_marketing.htm)
- "What is Social
Marketing?" by Weinreich, K. Nedra, February 1999 (www.social-marketing.com/whatis.html)
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