UNDRR News

Countries of the Asia-Pacific Economic Forum (APEC) have pledged to increase private sector engagement in their disaster resilience agenda, in a year when floods and earthquakes have wiped out assets worth billions of dollars across the region.

Seeking new ways to strengthen community resilience, city officials from Thailand and Viet Nam today began a two-day exchange with counterparts in the Philippines to examine the award-winning “Purok system” used by the city of San Francisco, Philippines, to empower ordinary people to find solutions for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), The World Bank, the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), and the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) are convening the “ASEAN Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance Forum” to help ASEAN Member States build greater financial resilience to natural disasters.

Cyclones, earthquakes, floods and drought combined with poverty have spurred the Myanmar government into complete acceptance of the need for a radical overhaul of its approach to disaster management and risk reduction.

The floods which have affected eight million people across South East Asia, and which now threaten Bangkok, have underlined shortcomings in disaster risk reduction with many children drowning because they cannot swim, and thousands of workers now unemployed because of poorly located manufacturing plants, the Head of the UN’s Bangkok Office for Disaster Reduction, UNISDR, Jerry Velasquez said today.

Earlier today, Thailand’s Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, said it was impossible to protect all of Bangkok from the worst floods in decades, describing the situation as a national crisis.

The annual monsoon season in South East Asia continues to wreak havoc on lives and economies across many parts of the region with Thailand reportedly suffering from the worst floods in 50 years.

Myanmar, a country prone to natural hazards, has shown positive progress in the areas of early warning, emergency preparedness and responses in recent years. Now, the Government is stepping up cooperation with global and regional partners to reach its long-term target of becoming a disaster resilient country.

Bangkok which has so far been spared the heavy flooding affecting one third of Thailand is currently preparing for the worst case scenario.

More than 30 cities across seven provinces in Pakistan signed up to the UNISDR World Disaster Reduction Campaign Making Cities Resilient on Saturday though many of them are still under water or recovering from heavy floods.