USAID-supported DRR in the Americas programme engages region’s universities
A unique disaster risk reduction (DRR)programme implemented by Florida International University (FIU) with funding from USAID/OFDA is engaging universities throughout Latin America in DRR efforts. Through the programme, 25 university professors recently completed an online graduate-level disaster risk management course provided by the Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña - International Center
for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE).
In September, as part of this programme, students who successfully completed the course will participate in a field visit, or pasantía, to the city of Manizales, Colombia, to observe a living urban laboratory in which community leaders, city officials, and staff from the National University of Colombia, Manizales campus, work together to reduce multiple disaster risks and hazards.
Both the recent course and upcoming field visit are funded by USAID/OFDA through the FIU programme “DRR in the Americas:
Conceptualizing, Identifying, Analyzing, Stimulating, and Strengthening Transferable DRR Methods.”
Two previous course/field visit combinations were funded in 2006 and 2007 by the Paul C. Bell Disaster Risk Management Initiative, another programme implemented by FIU with USAID/OFDA
funding.
The e-learning/e-training CIMNE course takes two and a half months to complete and is particularly noteworthy because of its extended geographic reach and pedagogic efficiency. Professors from
universities in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela have taken the course, which includes two separate subjects: Theory of Risk and Disasters, and Collective Risk Management.
Course participants are taught to evaluate risk and vulnerability from a multidisciplinary, interinstitutional, and multisectoral perspective, treating risk as a cross-cutting theme in developmental processes. Participants praised the course, which was designed and is taught by Colombian professor Omar Darío Cardona and Spanish professor Alex H. Barbat.
“Without a doubt, this course will help me better manage all aspects required to develop integral risk management programmes. The course’s debate space was very interesting and enriching, as it
allowed students to not only clarify questions and exchange viewpoints, but also served as self-evaluation. This course will contribute to my work at the university, helping to form future professionals and colleagues with improved knowledge and criteria,” said María Cad, a professor at Cuyo National University in Argentina.
Any Gonzalez, a risk management consultant and professor at the University of Costa Rica’s School of Geology, said the course will allow her “to transmit knowledge and apply new teaching strategies that exceed traditional methods and promote leadership, teamwork, and the incorporation of integral strategic disaster risk management into the culture. This will foment the sustainable development
of communities, regions and the country in general.”