UNDP: Advocating role of communities as first-hand disaster responders - Bhutan
Thimphu - The need to have a community that is prepared to face disasters is as essential as any government intervention at various levels was the message carried by the International Day for Disaster Reduction in Thimphu as several students, disaster management authorities and humanitarian aid organization gather to observe the day.
This year’s International Day for Disaster Reduction day celebrates how people and communities are reducing their exposure to disasters by using traditional, indigenous and local knowledge.
Through a video message, Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay said, “As much as our beloved monarch and the government works to manage disasters better, community participation is important”, adding that communities must not depend entirely on the government but also do their part by taking measures on their part such as ensuring quality while constructing a house.
Carrying forward the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon’s message of recognizing the efforts of communities, who put their wisdom to reducing disaster, the United Nations Resident Coordinator, Christina Carlson said that community response is key considering that, “Communities and other local actors are the first responders to disaster”, adding that the disasters one prepares for is not what one gets.
Sharing her experiences on disaster risk reduction during the Hurricane Sandy in New York, she said how, although the United Nations Headquarters remain closed during the disaster, the field work of the UN was not disrupted because of, “The decades of work that the UN had put into decentralizing disaster risk reduction.”
Minister of Home and Cultural Affairs, Dawa Gyeltshen urged participants to take the event as a day to learn from past experiences and recognize that it is everyone’s responsibility to do so.
Disaster risk reduction is an integral part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) that was recently endorsed by member states at the 70th General Assembly session of the United Nations.
Goal 11 (11.5) of the 17 SDGs that the member states looks to significantly reduce the number of deaths and people affected and substantially decrease the direct economic losses caused by disasters with focus on protecting the poor and vulnerable.
Bhutan started observing it as an annual event since 2008.
For more information, contact;
Pushkar Chhetri, Communications Analyst, UNDP Bhutan: [email protected]