The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Dhaka

The 3rd Asian ministerial conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) began in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia yesterday with a call to continue funding to the DRR initiatives despite the current global economic crisis.

The conference highly appreciated Bangladesh efforts in reducing loss of lives and livelihood even at the worst disaster like cyclone 'Sidr', according to a message received here.

Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Mohd Najib bin Tun Abdul Razak inaugurated the 3-day conference at Putra World Trade Centre, urging the donor nations to continue their support to DRR agenda and climate change adaptation.

He stressed the need for community based disaster management and said it requires an enabling and supportive institutional framework which transcends from the national to local Governments.

Ministers and high officials from more than 80 countries of Asia and the Pacific Island, including Bangladesh, are attending the biennial conference.

Over 600 representatives from regional and sub-regional organizations, UN agencies, international financial institutions and other stakeholders including the civil society, scientific and technical organizations, the private sector and the media are also participating.

On the opening day, Ministers and representatives of 26 Asian countries including Australia, Vietnam, Philippines, India, Singapore, Iran, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan and Bangladesh made their speech focusing on DRR practices at home and its multidimensional challenges.

They emphasized on public-private-people partnership to reduce the disaster risk at a reasonable level.

Most of them appreciated the efforts Bangladesh displayed in reducing the loss of lives and livelihood even at the worst disaster like the cyclone 'Sidr'. "Bangladesh has become a model for DRR which could be followed by developing and developed world," the conference was told.

The participating countries reaffirmed their commitment to the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) adopted in Kobe, Japan as a unique plan to reduce disaster losses by 2015 and increase the resilience of communities to disasters.

HFA highlights five priorities for action and calls attention to the need of collective efforts at all levels to reduce the number and effects of natural disasters.

The Centre of Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters report said 2008 has been a bad year for the region, home to 61 per cent of the world population, with more than 230,000 people killed and over 47 million affected by two major disasters-the Sichuan earthquake in China and the cyclone 'Nargis' in Myanmar.

In 2007, some 13,400 people of the region were killed and more than 191 million people were affected from disasters causing a total loss of US$ 35 billion.

On the first day of the conference, UNISDR appointed Senator Loren Legarda of Philippines as the First 'Champion' for DRR in Asia-Pacific to advocate the policies for DRR.

In addition to the ministerial conference, Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) and UNISDR jointly organized media training on DRR with a view to focusing the role of media in the Asia-Pacific's response of DRR issues.

Some 15 media personnel from different Asian countries including Bangladesh are attending the 3-day training program at WTC. Current DRR situation in Asia, media trends on DRR and facilities for media to response local DRR issues were discussed on the first day.

The first ministerial conference was held in Beijing in 2005 and the second conference was organized by India in Delhi in 2007.