The
World Conference on Disaster Reduction (WCDR) is scheduled to take
place from 18 - 22 January 2005 in Kobe, Hyogo, Japan. This event is
considered a milestone in raising the profile of disaster risk
reduction in development planning and practice. It will provide
ample opportunity to promote strategic and systematic approaches to
addressing vulnerabilities and reducing the risk of natural hazards
at the national level. Participants hope to build on findings from a
review of the Yokohama Strategy and Plan of Actions of 1994.
As
a member of the UN Inter-Agency Task Force (UN IATF) and a member of
the IATF working group for WCDR, ADPC has been contributing to the
program document. In March 2004, during the Regional Consultative
Meeting in Dhaka, a "Preparatory Meeting for WCDR" was organized and
the national reports were discussed. Subsequently, ADPC has been
following up with RCC members (NDMOs from Asian countries) and
encouraging submission of national reports. ADPC is co-organizing
two parallel sessions under the urban clusters dealing with "Urban
Risk Reduction" and "Environmental Degradation and Disaster Risk".
Presentations are planned for a number of sessions including
Governance: Institutional and Policy Frameworks for Risk Reduction,
Disaster Prevention and Adaptation to Climate Change, and
Sustainability in CBRDM. ADPC is also publishing three articles in
“Know Risk”- the official UN publication for the conference.
In
light of the responsibility placed on national governments, ADPC
believes it has an important role to play in the follow-on
initiatives to WCDR. One such activity would be the implementation
of programs and outcome documents. This will be taken up in a
special session at the 5th RCC meeting scheduled for 18 - 20 May
2005 in Hanoi, Vietnam. ADPC's RCC project on Mainstreaming DRM into
Development (MDRM) is a planned component to support RCC member
countries in preparing their national action plans to implement the
WCDR Declaration. We are also planning to register the MDRM as a
WCDR implementation partnership to be launched at Kobe.
