Philippines: National Youth Council to promote youth representation in local disaster risk reduction and management committees

Quezon City - The provincial ordinance of Oriental Mindoro that guarantees youth representation in their local disaster risk reduction and management councils and offices has inspired the National Youth Commission (NYC) to promote the same legislation in other provinces.

"We laud them and congratulate them (Oriental Mindoro) for giving importance to the roles of the youth. We would like this (ordinance) to be replicated throughout the Philippines", NYC Commission-at-Large Dingdong Dantes said.

Under the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010, NYC is one of the agencies that needed to be consulted on the mainstreaming of Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (DRRM) in school curricula and Sangguniang Kabataan programs.

The non-inclusion of NYC in the membership of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council prodded the commission to pursue other means to institutionalize youth representation in DRRM. Since the inclusion would require time-consuming amendments, NYC opted to encourage local governments to pass pieces of legislations like ordinances.

The youth representation in the local DRRMCs and DRRMOs are expected to plan capability building activities to prepare their sector for calamities.