Bangkok l 20 February -- The 2011 floods that
caused unprecedented devastation across South-East Asia have highlighted the
need for stepped up investment in disaster risk reduction to protect social and
economic assets, top government officials from the subregion agreed at a United
Nations forum here today.
Representatives of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia,
Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Philippines, Timor-Leste,
Thailand and Viet Nam met at the one-day South-East
Asia Flood Risk Reduction Forum organized by the United Nations
Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in cooperation
with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the International Centre
for Water Hazard and Risk Management (ICHARM), to discuss the lessons from the
2011 flooding in South-East Asia and ways to make their nations more resilient
to future flood risks.
Opening the Forum, Dr. Noeleen Heyzer, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, and the Executive Secretary of ESCAP, called for faster implementation of regional and national disaster risk reduction frameworks. She highlighted the relationship between disasters and development, saying: “Hazards become disasters in the absence of development and with inadequate investment in risk reduction. This knowledge-sharing meeting presents us with the opportunity to address gaps in regional and national disaster preparedness, management and response.”
The key message emerging from Forum presentations and discussions was that the 2011 South-East Asia floods were a “wake-up call to policymakers, governments, private sector and civil society that there is a gap between rapid economic growth and investment in disaster risk reduction”.
Opening the Forum, Dr. Noeleen Heyzer, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, and the Executive Secretary of ESCAP, called for faster implementation of regional and national disaster risk reduction frameworks. She highlighted the relationship between disasters and development, saying: “Hazards become disasters in the absence of development and with inadequate investment in risk reduction. This knowledge-sharing meeting presents us with the opportunity to address gaps in regional and national disaster preparedness, management and response.”
The key message emerging from Forum presentations and discussions was that the 2011 South-East Asia floods were a “wake-up call to policymakers, governments, private sector and civil society that there is a gap between rapid economic growth and investment in disaster risk reduction”.
More
investment is needed to fill this gap in order to protect social and economic
assets from floods and other disasters in the region, in particular for those
areas with rapid economic growth.
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