The 11th meeting of the Regional Consultative Committee on Disaster Management (RCC) was opened by the Vice President, Honorable Excellency U Nyan Tun today with the main theme on 'Reducing Disaster Risk and Transforming Development'. With 13 RCC Member Countries attending the 11th RCC meeting to share their lessons learnt and experiences on mainstreaming disaster risk reduction, there is high expectation on the outcome of the meeting to further strengthen the subject of mainstreaming in the region through the discussion of the next new framework on mainstreaming for RCC Member Countries.

Government officials, observers from development partners, international organizations to regional and local organizations were invited to participate this meeting to provide their input into the new mainstreaming framework from the context of their spheres of work.

During the opening ceremony, Honorable Excellency U Nyan Tun mentioned the importance of mainstreaming disaster risk reduction into development planning to safe guard development gain and the need to work closely with international and regional technical organizations including the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) through the RCC mechanism to maximize the learning opportunity created by such regional mechanism for neighboring countries who are facing similar challenges and risks on the ground.

The Union Minister, Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement spoke next. She stressed the important opportunity of the 11th RCC Meeting for the Member Countries to shape the future development of the regional and global disaster risk reduction framework through the upcoming 6th Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction and the upcoming 3rd World Conference on Disaster Reduction through working together collectively to advance the subject of mainstreaming.

The Chairman of the ADPC Board of Trustees, Prof. Dr. Krasae Chanawongse encouraged the participants to think outside the box to find innovative solutions to address the challenges and priorities of mainstreaming. The Deputy Chief of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) of Mongolia, Mr. Tuvshin Badral thanked ADPC, Secretariat of the RCC mechanism for its technical support to NEMA during its Chairmanship of RCC and the successful 10th RCC meeting held in Ulaanbaator in March 2013.

Mr. Florian Neutze, BMZ Focal Point Disaster Risk Management of Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development expressed the support of the German Government through its Global Initiative Disaster Risk Management to the RCC mechanism. He expressed the importance of a regional mechanism focused on facilitating information and knowledge exchange among its members and the strengths of the region in advancing the agenda of disaster risk reduction together.

Established in 2000 as one of the first regional dialogue platforms to promote consultation and cooperation on reducing disaster risk, the Regional Consultative Committee (RCC) on Disaster Management promotes peer advocacy and the exchange of experiences in Disaster Risk Management (DRM). Its Secretariat, ADPC, initiated the committee to bring countries in Asia-Pacific region together to achieve common goals in DRM, explore ways to transform policies into practices, and promote regional cooperation. More specifically, the RCC’s role is to provide a consultative mechanism for guiding implementation of DRM action strategies for the region; promoting co-operative DRM programs on a regional and sub-regional basis; and guiding the work of ADPC and its future directions.