Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) organized the first consultative meeting under the regional project Strengthening the Disaster Resilience of SMEs in Asia in early April in Bangkok. This was the first one in a series of national consultation meetings that will take place in the project’s four target countries, including Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam.

Participated by the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation, Office of Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion, National Economic and Social Development Board, SME Bank, Department of Industrial Promotion, Thailand Industrial Standards Institute, and SME associations, the meeting resulted in a list recommended priority actions to build an enabling environment to strengthen SMEs’ resilience to disaster in Thailand.

During the project, ADPC will directly support 15-20 SMEs’ within Thailand to build their disaster risk management capacity and develop business continuity plans. Based on the discussions in the consultation meeting, the enterprises in Thailand will be selected based on the vulnerability of their business sector, the disaster risks faced in their area of operation, and the possible impact of previous disasters on the enterprise’s functions and supply chains.

ADPC will establish a national working group to guide the project activities and contribute to the development of a roadmap for strengthening SMEs’ resilience in Thailand.

The project belongs under ADPC’s iPrepare Business facility, and is supported by Asian Development Bank’s Integrated Disaster Risk Management Fund financed by the Government of Canada, and the German Ministry for Economic Development and Cooperation (BMZ) through the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH within the framework of the Global Initiative on Disaster Risk Management.