Asian Regional Meeting on El Niño-Related Crises
2-6 February 1998
Bangkok, Thailand

Annex C
Statement of the ASIAN Regional Meeting on El Nino Related Crises

Guiding Principles

The Asian Regional Meeting on El Niœo Related Crises recognizes the following guiding principles:

• Effects of climate variations can be significantly mitigated and the positive aspects can be capitalized upon.
• There is an urgent need to interface between climate information and user community to address the short- and long-term problems of vulnerability to climate variations
• The pertinent information must be provided to the affected and most vulnerable communities in a usable form.

Key Action Areas

As such, the following key action areas towards building regional capacities have been identified. There is a need to:

• develop a regional capability to produce climate information guidance;
• disseminate information on potential impacts on key sectors such as Agriculture and Food Security, Environment and Natural Resources, Population and Public Health, and Industry and Economy;
• coordinate various regional initiatives;
• promote and strengthen the use of existing technical capacities in the region;
• strengthen capacities of governments and institutions to respond; and
• share best practices.

Recommendations

The Asian Regional Meeting on El Nino Related Crises calls upon national governments, regional and international organizations to:

• formally acknowledge the value of long-lead forecasts in alleviating social and economic costs related to climate variations;
• issue a mandate to establish an integrated regional climate information system; and
• commit to provide the political and financial support necessary to establish such a system.

To achieve these ends, the Asian Regional Meeting on El Niœo Related Crises nominates the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center to conduct the following activities:

• Establish a regional forum of climate experts (national, regional and international) to engage in on-going dialogues to provide guidance to the countries of the region; and
• Establish a regional strategic planning committee representative of key stakeholder groups in the region.