Disaster officials from member-countries of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) finalized the main body of the APEC Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction on Wednesday, September 23, in Iloilo City, reports Rappler.
The new APEC framework can now be counted as a “major deliverable in this year’s APEC hosting,” said Presidential Management Staff Undersecretary Ferdinand Cui who also sat at the panel as APEC Senior Officials’ Meeting vice chair. The 'basic framework' calls on cooperation among the 21 APEC economies to strengthen their resilience to disaster. The final document recognizes the risks to disaster shared by APEC countries because of their location in the Pacific Ring of Fire and paths of strong typhoons, and vulnerability to phenomena like El Niño and La Niña exacerbated by climate change.