Disaster risk reduction document prepared

KABUL National Disaster Management (ANDM) says 99 percent areas of the country are prone to calamities; but the situation is likely to improve. 

Wais Ahmad Barmak, the ANDM minister, said here on Tuesday they planned taking practical measures to ensure national risk management and effectively dealing with natural disasters.

Barmak was speaking at a joint session with the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO) in Kabul on the reduction of disaster risks in Afghanistan under the National Consultative Workshop

Arresting risks of natural disasters and utilising the expertise of regional countries in Afghanistan were the main discussion topics at the session, he said.

Barmak said the document of reducing risks of natural disasters had been completed, and was set to be sent to the Presidential Palace. It will be executed in the next seven months.

Based on the document, the structure of ANDM would be reformed, human capacity built in line with the country’s situation and warning systems installed in vulnerable areas, he said.

More coordination would be brought about for outreach and help. The minister went on to say currently the organisational structure of his ministry was not proper to cope with the natural disasters.

Efforts were being made to reduce the natural risks in the country by establishing a management system and disaster response, Barmak added.

He said the document had been prepared utilising the government’s expertise in disaster management and drawing on the experience of regional countries’. With the implementation of the document, Afghanistan will be in a better situation for the next four years.

Barmak continued Afghanistan’s risk assessment system had also been put in place, which would be effected from April 2017.

Afghanistan, from the vulnerability viewpoint, was 99 percent at risk and 60 percent of the country was prone to earthquakes. Studies showed that due to the harsh economic situation, insecurity and regional pressures for forced repatriation of migrants, Afghanistan would not be in a good humanitarian condition in the next solar year, he added.

Esther Kuisch Laroche, director and Representative of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Cluster Office in Tehran, said natural disasters caused serious damage to people’s economy.

For the purpose, Laroche explained, UNESCO had done work in several countries for natural disaster risk reduction, which had yielded good results as well.

He said UNESCO and other international organisations had arranged workshops for natural disaster risk reduction in order to lower the risks and damage in Afghanistan while utilising local capacity.

While calling the implementation of ‘Sendai Framework’ in Afghanistan valuable, he said if the agreement was properly enforced, disaster risks would be considerably reduced in Afghanistan.

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 (Sendai Framework) is the first major agreement of the post-2015 development agenda, with seven targets and four priorities for action.

It was endorsed in Sendai city, Japan, by the UN General Assembly following the 2015 Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR).

The workshop was also attended by representatives from the Aga Khan Development Network, ECO and UNESCO.

sns/mds/mud

Views: 0