Towards Developing a National Disaster Risk Reduction and Recovery Plan - Qatar

Organizer(s) Qatar - government United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - Office in Incheon for Northeast Asia and Global Education and Training Institute for Disaster Risk Reduction

Format

In person

Date

7 March 2016 - 10 March 2016

Background

Qatar has been working on strengthening their capacities to face disasters whether triggered natural hazards, accidents, or man-made causes. As a part of these efforts to control the impact of disaster and reduce its human and economic losses, Qatar has established in 1998 a Permanent Emergency Committee (PEC), which is responsible for crisis and disaster management. PEC comprises representatives of ministries and public and private organizations.

The Committee has prepared a National Plan for Emergency that serves as general framework and was adopted in 2005. The Plan includes a set of detailed contingency plans in line with the events expected to occur in the State of Qatar. Periodic and continuous drills for these plans are conducted to ensure efficiency and readiness of the State. Under the General Authority of Civil Aviation Administration, Qatar also established a regional observatory in terms of monitoring earthquakes and various other emergencies and natural disasters.

The series of meetings is called by the Permanent Emergency Committee to provide a space to respond to questions from different line ministries for the development of the plan. These meetings were built on two previous workshops organized by UNISDR in collaboration with the International Recovery Platform in 2014 aiming to elevate the State of Qatar’s recovery capacity and readiness for any emergency. Following the Third UN WCDRR and the adoption of the Sendai Framework, a delegation from the Permanent Emergency Committee visited UNISDR ONEA-GETI in Incheon and received orientation on the implementation of the global instrument.

Outcome

Senior representatives of the Permanent Emergency Committee of the Ministry of Interior of Qatar received practical tools to make their sectorial assessment. Global good practices that have been applied in different countries and contexts, to reduce disaster risk, and to prevent new risk while making new investments for development were made available to government officials.

The committee members better understood the methodology and key areas that each ministry will assess to contribute to the overall plan. Even though many ministries have a crisis management plan in place, more scenarios need to be consider tackling future potential risks such as sea level rise, surge storms. Whether investing in resilient infrastructure, inclusion of DRR into school curriculum, new water drainage, securing new schools in safe locations, implementing scenarios and drills, each sector of the committee can contribute to the overall resilience of the State of Qatar as one.