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Disaster prevention initiatives highlighted at Japan meet

JAIPUR: Initiatives for stepping up preparedness for natural disasters, establishment of safety nets such as grain bank and fodder bank and exercises for hazard vulnerability analysis at the village level in Rajasthan were highlighted at an international workshop on disaster prevention organised in Japan earlier this month.

A two-member team of the Jaipur-based Centre for Community Economics and Development Consultants' Society, which visited Tokyo and other cities while attending the workshop, interacted with experts, community stakeholders and government officials to share their experiences about disaster management.

The week-long workshop, titled “Disaster Prevention and People: Working towards the Creation of a Strong Society”, was organised by the Japan Foundation under the Japan-East Asia Network of Exchange for Students and Youths (JENESYS) Programme.

Centre's unit head, economic justice, Prerna Sharma and unit head, planning, monitoring and evaluation, Manish Prasad, taking part in the workshop threw light on the efforts for capacity building of local communities for evolving early warning systems and awareness campaigns launched by the NGO in the rural areas of Rajasthan for dealing with disasters.

Ms. Sharma said here on Sunday that the participants from 13 countries evinced a keen interest in the situations of natural calamities and adversities in the desert State, which faces recurrent droughts almost every year. “Our experiences in mitigating the impact of drought and strategies for food security were treated as a valuable contribution to the workshop.”

The Jaipur team also informed the activists from other countries of the steps being taken in India under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, to deal with the impact of periodic floods, droughts, earthquakes, landslides, cyclones, etc., in different parts of the country with a vast diversity in geography and climate.

Experts addressing the workshop covered different aspects of the impact of disasters on financial, natural and human resources as well as the ability of the affected communities to cope with the consequences.

Ms. Sharma said the Japanese model of research on earthquakes, early warning systems and disaster risk reduction was the object of curiosity for the international participants.

The research agencies in Japan not only focus on capacity building of the local government, but also give equal emphasis to information sharing with stakeholders and community-based hazard mapping.

Tadashi Ogawa of the Japan Foundation's intellectual exchange department was instrumental in explaining to the participants the distinctive features of Japanese town and street planning, water management, creation of livelihood towns, women entrepreneurship and disaster risk reduction.

During a meeting of the participants with the officers of the Japanese Ministry of External Affairs, the latter pointed out that Japan was willing to support initiatives for disaster management in East Asian countries. Japan has very strong seismic codes for construction activities as well as an ingenious rehabilitation policy.

Besides India, the participants in the workshop were from the countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Laos, Australia, the Philippines, New Zealand, South Korea, China, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Brunei and Myanmar.

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