SAARC Training of Trainers on Disaster Risk Reduction and Adaptation to Climate Change
Learning Workshop on Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction into Development organized by SDMC, ADPC and NDMC were held at Hotel Jen, Male’ Maldives from 7th to 10th December 2014. Main objectives of the TOT was to;
- Identify and explore key challenges and concerns related to mainstreaming DRR into the development processes.
- Increase awareness among participants on the need to mainstream DRR into the development planning processes.
- Identify strategies and opportunity to advance mainstreaming activities both at the national, sub-national and regional level and prioritized sectors.
- Provide a platform for developing action plan through experience sharing and discussion on mainstreaming DRR practice and experiences.
The program was held in Maldives since SAARC region is highly exposed to natural disasters and is one of the most disaster-prone regions in the world. It has a history of devastating earthquakes, extreme temperature, floods including Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOF), landslides, droughts, and cyclones that caused huge economic and human losses. Moreover, between 2006 and 2009, the South Asia recorded 128 natural disaster events and out of these 93 percent were hydro-metrological origin. As per EM-DAT and South Asia Disaster Report, in 2011, the region witnessed natural disasters with varying degree of frequencies and magnitude, for instance, around 291 natural disasters occurred in South Asia and constituted about 96.5% of total global natural disasters. Consequently, these natural disasters have also caused very high economic losses to the South Asian economy. Moreover, the World Bank noted that as a result of natural disasters, the public expenditure in the affected region is under severe stress by the repeated need for relief work in vulnerable areas. In other words, damages caused by natural disasters are exerting more and more pressure on development opportunities. In the state of Maharashtra, India for instance, “a single drought in 2003 and a flood in 2005 consumed more of the state budget (US$3.5 billion) than the entire planned expenditure (US$3.04 billion) on irrigation, agriculture, and rural development for the 2002–2007 planning period”.
Recently, Countries in South Asia have recognized the intricate linkages between disasters and development and endorsed the Hyogo Framework for Action (2005-2015) which also considers “integrating risk reduction into development policies and plans at all levels of Government including poverty reduction strategies and multi-sectoral policies and plans”. Moreover, the SAARC Comprehensive Framework on Disaster Management has been adopted by these countries and this framework identifies “mainstreaming disaster risk reduction into the development policies and practices of the government at all levels” as “one of the key priority areas for developing resilience to disasters in SAARC region”. In addition, each country in SAARC region has developed its own disaster management framework which also commits on integrating disaster risk reduction into development. Under disaster management framework, each SAARC country has developed the foundation for mainstreaming DRR into development. The most recent regional forum on MDRD-the SAARC Workshop on ‘Mainstreaming DRR in Development’ held in November 2008 in Sri Lanka, have brought together SAARC member countries to collectively explore mainstreaming DRR interventions from different array reflecting country’s attempts and achievements and to jointly formulate an action plan for mainstreaming which encompasses policy guidelines, technical tools, and promoting integration DRR into key development sectors, among others.
Hence, this stresses the need for advancing mainstreaming disaster risk reduction into development processes, to achieve secured development in the long run which is disaster and climate resilient. While expertise and diverse initiatives around the subject have been developed and experimented in South Asia region, vigorous attempts to translate the mainstreaming approach to concentrate actions are still to pursue.
SAARC Disaster Management Center, New Delhi in collaboration with Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) Bangkok have collaborated on the development and conduction of the SAARC ToT on Disaster Risk Reduction and Adaptation to Climate Change aiming to offer opportunities with specifics to strengthen the technical capacity of concerned SAARC officials to pursue greater interventions in Mainstreaming DRR, knowledge sharing, technical transfer, to enhance peer learning and experience sharing, and platform to collectively explore challenges and opportunity to advance mainstreaming activities both at national, sub-national and regional level.