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Plenary: |
Special session on
Indian Ocean Disaster:
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Above photo L-R: Sálvano
Briceño, Director, ISDR; Yoshitaka Murata,
WCDR President; Kamal Ibne Yousuf Chowdury,
Minister of Food and Disaster Management, Bangladesh, Dave
Mwangi, Permanent Secretary, Office of the
President, Kenya and Ashoka Kumar Rastogi,
Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, India.
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Above
Left: Tissa Vitarana, Minister of Science
and Technology, Sri Lanka, noted the devastation of the
fishing and tourism economy; Adik
Bantarso, Head, Bureau for Cooperation, National
Coordination Agency For Refugee And Disaster Relief,
Indonesia, underscored Indonesia’s infrastructure
damage; Suporn
Ratanakin, Department of Disaster Prevention
and Mitigation, Thailand, stressed tax, loan and
regulatory relief for restoring livelihoods; Ian
Wilderspin, International Federation of the Red
Cross, emphasized the importance of involving vulnerable
populations in EW system design.
Above right: John Horekens, Coordinator of WCDR
and Sálvano
Briceño, Director, ISDR
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Jan
Egeland, UN Under-Secretary-General for
Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator,
commended the international community’s unprecedented
response, noting that within three weeks nearly all those
affected by the tsunami had food, shelter, and health, water
and sanitation facilities.
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Hans-Joachim Daerr,
Germany’s Director-General for Global Issues, the
United Nations, Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid,
offered to host an international EW conference in early
2006.
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Sadako Ogata, JICA President, warned against
‘reconstructing poverty.’
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Amb. Thomas Baker,
US, suggested calling upon the Global Earth Observation
System of Systems (GEOSS).
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Robert Owen-Jones, Environment Director,
Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade,
recommended that an Indian Ocean EW system make use of
existing EW systems.
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Main Committee:
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The Main Committee made
some progress during the day but encountered difficulties on
issues such as the legal status of the framework for action,
references to finance, the MDGs and the review process.
Several informal contact groups were trying to fight a Friday
deadline to resolve contentious issues and negotiations are
expected to continue working well into the night. Above photos
L-R: Main Committee Chair
Marco Ferrari (Switzerland); Michael Peay and Donna Lee of the
United States in discussion with Mohammad Hossein Moghimi
of Iran.
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Above photos L-R: Juana
Nuñez (Mexico); Joyce Mosweu (Botswana) and Jorge
Osella (Argentina)
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Above photos L-R:
Nicolas Nzoyoum (Cameroon), Fredrik Arthúr (Norway) and Shelley-Ann
Clarke-Hinds (Trinidad and Tobago)
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Thematic segment:
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Thematic Panel Cluster 1:
Governance, institutional and policy frameworks for risk
reduction
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Amb. Glaudine
Mtshali, South African Permanent Mission in Geneva, chaired the
panel and said that good governance is a prerequisite to
elevating disaster reduction on the development agenda.
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Irmgard
Schwaetzer, Chairman, German Committee for Disaster Reduction
(DKKV), presented on the role of national platforms and said
that good governance in risk management requires a
multi-stakeholder, multi-level and multi-disciplinary
approach.
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Kenneth
Westgate, Senior Regional Advisor, UNDP, highlighted the
importance of political commitment, multi-stakeholder
participation, and financial resources to achieve good
governance in disaster risk reduction, and presented voluntary
targets. He added that all donor assistance and lending
programmes should include a full analysis of disaster risks
and make provision for their mitigation.
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Martin Owor, Assistant Commissioner, Uganda's
Department of Disaster Preparedness and Refugees,
noted that a handful of African countries have developed
national strategies for disaster reduction.
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Thematic Cluster 2: Session
2.1
Integrated flood risk management through appropriate knowledge
sharing and capacity building systems
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On capacity building, Andreas
Haiduk, Jamaica’s Water Resources Authority, discussed
lessons learned from the use of flood warning tools, including
flood forecast tables.
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On knowledge sharing, Slobodan Simonovic, University of
Western Ontario, detailed interagency flood-response
activities.
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Above photo L-R: Bruce Stewart, Australia's Bureau of
Meteorology and Akira Terakawa, Secretariat for
Preparatory Activities of UNESCO-PWRI Center co-chaired the
session, which included panels on knowledge sharing and
capacity building.
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WCDR
ENB Snapshots:
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Above photos L-R: Photos
from the reception hosted by the Government of Japan
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Above photos: WCDR local
volunteers wearing the Kimono, a Japanese traditonal
dress
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