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http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/SNAA-7X477Z?OpenDocument

 

‘Prepare for worst' disaster plan call 

Source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) 

Date: 22 Oct 2009 

 
The United Nations Development Program has called on regional governments to 
invest in disaster preparedness.  

The Asia Pacific region was hit by multiple disasters in the past few weeks, with 
earthquakes in Indonesia, a tsunami in Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga, and wild 
storms in South-East Asia.  

Jordan Ryan, director of the UNDP's Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery, told 
Radio Australia's Connect Asia program: "There is growing awareness that both the 
intensity of these storms and the frequency of these storms will only increase, because 
of such things as global climate change."  

There were already examples in western nations that were unprepared for weather 
events, and suffered as a result.  

Vulnerability  

The idea was to reduce vulnerability to disasters.  

"We're really concerned to assist national authorities, work in partnership with other 
governments, especially in the Pacific with Australia and New Zealand," Mr Ryan 
said.  

He said countries needed to think how they could merge the work of a number of 
agencies into single disaster management plan.  

The UN official said planning could include assessing where a threat was likely to 
strike.  

For example, villages may have to be moved.  

He believed for some places that found themselves in the way of the latest tsunami, 
"five metres would have made a difference".  

There was a need "to put disaster risk management into the consciousness of finance 
officials" and other bureaucrats and politicians.  

"Of not just the Red Cross people who work on the ground, but prime ministers and 
leading ministers, to make sure that things work better the more prepared we are."  

 

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National budgets had to include disaster planning funding, even if it was not used in 
the year under review.  

It was also vital to follow through this sort of detail with an awareness plan, Mr Ryan 
said.  

Looking  

In Samoa and Tonga, some villagers - not fully aware of their danger - had gone out 
to look at the advancing tsunami, rather than immediately flee, he said.  

After a disaster, countries also have to "build back better", with stronger construction 
that could withstand trouble.  

Work still needed to be done in terms of mapping out risks, addressing them 
coherently, having resources available, and budgeting for trouble.  

"It might not happen this year, it might never happen. But it's much better to be 
prepared," Mr Ryan said. © ABC