FEALAC symposium on Pan-Oceanic Cooperation for Disaster Risk Reduction
About 50 Executives of Regional Institutions and Directors of National Agencies responsible for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) will gather together at the symposium of the Forum for East Asia – Latin America Cooperation (FEALAC) between 9 and 12 of November 2009 in Bangkok and Phuket, Thailand. The four-day symposium, titled as ‘Pan-Oceanic Cooperation for Disaster Risk Reduction’ is co-hosted by Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand, Thailand International Development Cooperation Agency (TICA) and Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC).
The symposium will function as a forum with aims at sharing DRR strategies and methodologies among the countries, discussing adaptation challenges, and creating a network of technical support and information sharing from the 33 FEALAC member countries from both sides of the Pacific Ocean.
Tropical and subtropical countries in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean have similar patterns of disaster risk, such as unplanned urbanization and unsustainable land use change increase vulnerabilities, exposure to tropical cyclones, influence of monsoon, influence of the El Niño/La Niña Southern Oscillation (ENSO), increased landslide risk and increase in frequency of rain-triggered land slides, malaria, dengue fever and other anthropod-borne disease, and pandemic threats from avian influenza and other emerging and re-emerging zoonotic diseases.
According to the fourth Assessment Report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007, the regions are projected to experience increases in the risk from hydro-meteorological extreme events. Therefore it has been strongly recommended that the disaster management capacities of each country should be examined to evaluate their preparedness to deal with the projected increasing risks.
Given the fact that the Asia and Latin America, the two regions have been regularly exposed to many of these hazards, there are probably existing approaches to managing them already found within the countries. In this respect, the symposium is expected to bring many useful and helpful ideas in managing climate-related disaster risks.
The four-day seminar includes presentations of distinguished guest speakers from WHO, PAHO, CIIFEN and IFRC, discussions among all participants and study visits to Ban Nam Khem, a southern-coastal village in Phuket.