International day for disaster reduction - Bangladesh

On the occasion of the International day for disaster reduction (IDDR), 2010 the Comprehensive disaster management programme phase II will be celebrated through the launch of a campaign 'making our community safe, promoting disaster risk reduction'. The campaign targets audience at national as well as community level, living in both urban and rural areas of the country, and includes CDMP II stakeholders as key actors and institutions in mobilizing this campaign.

The key messages considered are focused on:

1) building knowledge and access to information and services that can save lives and property
2) planning and provisioning for better disaster preparedness
3) coordination and safety during a natural event and
4) disaster preventive recovery, building capacity to reduce vulnerability to future events.

The objective of observing the IDDR is to sensitize the social and financial communities and organizations on their important role in reducing disaster risk, and to increase awareness in the disaster and risk management community of the use of existing tools and practices to mitigate the vulnerability of disaster-prone populations.

The specific objective for observing IDDR 2010 by CDMP phase II is to mobilize stakeholder communities, actors and institutions at all levels all throughout the country, towards a better understanding and practice of disaster risk reduction. The objective of the campaign describes the motivation for this initiative, while the strategic approach describes the expectations and impacts.

A set of events and activities (in-exhaustive) have been considered and planned, to stimulate the thrust of the campaign among the targeted audiences.  An implementation plan, activity time schedule, resource and budget for the campaign, especially the launch on IDDR, 2010, are also outlined for consideration. The campaign will consist of several activities devoted to disaster management issues:

A) Special day programmes: national rally , national seminar and talk show in the media
B) Special day outreach: special day newspaper supplement in Bangla and English
C) Special day products: poster and commemorative publication