Activity Report

Workshop on Disaster Recovery Planning in Serbia

26-28 November 2012 (Belgrade, Serbia)

Over 40 officials from government ministries, municipal governments, United Nations organizations, and training institute participated in the Workshop on Disaster Recovery Planning on 26-28 November 2012 at Zira Hotel in Belgrade, Serbia. The event was jointly organized by the Ministry of Interior Sector for Emergency Management of Serbia, UNDP Serbia, UNISDR, European Commission (EC), and IRP/ADRC.

The workshop was a follow-up event to the Training on Resilient Recovery conducted in April 2011 by the same organizers. As envisioned in the follow-up event, experts from the National Training Institute of Serbia served as co-facilitators of the workshop - specifically on two sectors considered in long-term recovery: infrastructure and climate change adaptation. The workshop also provided the venue for experts and practitioners in Serbia to discuss the challenges that are commonly encountered in recovery and to explore measures to overcome them.

The outcomes of the workshop included: (i) consolidated strategic recommendations for disaster recovery plans for national and municipal governments in Serbia; (ii) agreement by the National Training Institute of Serbia to adopt the workshop module on Disaster Recovery Planning from IRP/ADRC, and to enhance the capacity of all concerned government ministries and municipal governments; and (iii) discussions between IRP/ADRC and UNDP Serbia for a potential partnership in implementing the proposed plan for establishing a "Resource Center for DRR" at Nis, Serbia to cater the needs of stakeholders not only in Serbia but for the entire Balkan region.

(2012/12/10 14:40)

7th Integrated Workshop of the Typhoon Committee

26-27 November 2012 (Nanjing, CHINA)

ADRC participated in the 7th Integrated Workshop of the Typhoon Committee which was jointly organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Typhoon Committee Secretariat, the China Meteorological Administration (CMA), and Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology (NUIST) in Nanjing on 26-27 November 2012. The more than 100 participants who attended the meeting included representatives from Japan, Lao, Malaysia, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Thailand, US, Viet Nam, Hong Kong and the Macao Special Administrative Regions, as well as representatives of the organizing institutions. The participants discussed their approaches to issuing "effective warnings," which was the main theme of the meeting. For the Disaster Risk Reduction Working Group, Japan's Cabinet Office gave a presentation on the damage caused by typhoons in 2012 and on ADRC activities such as the Visiting Researcher Program.

The Typhoon Committee has two other working groups on meteorology and hydrology, in addition to the working group on disaster risk reduction. This workshop brought the three working groups together for an integrated meeting.
For more information, visit
http://www.typhooncommittee.org/IWS_Nanjing/index.html

(2012/11/30 19:40)

The session on "Does Catastrophic Disaster Change the Civil Society and Philanthropy? The Case of Tohoku Earthquake in Japan" in ARNOVA Annual Conference

16 November 2012 (Indianapolis, USA)

The 41st Annual Conference of Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) was held from 14 to 19 November 2012 at Hyatt Regency Hotel in Indianapolis, USA. At the session on "Does Catastrophic Disaster Change the Civil Society and Philanthropy? The Case of Tohoku Earthquake in Japan", IRP/ADRC presented the outline of the Great East Japan Earthquake and the recovery efforts made by local communities after the disaster.
About 650 people, including academics, practitioners, and those interested in NPO/NGO education and social enterprises, participated in the four-day conference that successfully organized a total of 176 sessions.
The session on Tohoku Earthquake was aimed at reporting the recovery status and the analysis of private sector's bottom up activities, especially in terms of giving, volunteering, social capital, and role of NPO/NGOs in the recovery process. The session attracted many participants who were interested in the progress of recovery from the earthquake, drawing active and lively discussions.

(2012/11/30 14:00)

The 5th Sentinel Asia Joint Project Meeting (JPTM)

14-16 November 2012 (Daejeon, Korea)

The 5th Sentinel Asia Joint Project Meeting (JPTM) was held on 14-16 November 2012 in Daejeon, Korea. It was organized jointly by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) of the Korea.
   Under the Sentinel Asia framework, ADRC functions as a single gateway for processing emergency observation requests, screening and then forwarding approved requests to the relevant space agencies. At the meeting, ADRC reported on the status of the emergency observations that were implemented, the results of a survey on how the satellite data provided was utilized in each country, and the result of Glacier Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) project in Bhutan. The topics discussed at this meeting were as follows:
       -   Progress of Sentinel Asia Step 2
       -   Current situation of each JPT member
       -   Activities of the Forest Fire Working Group
       -   Activities of the Flood Working Group
       -   Activities of the Glacier Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) Working Group
       -   Collaboration with Sentinel Asia and the International Disaster Charter

ADRC will continue to promote the use of satellite data for disaster reduction in Asia in cooperation with the Sentinel Asia secretariat. For more details about this meeting, please visit the Sentinel Asia web site https://sentinel.tksc.jaxa.jp/sentinel2/topControl.action.

(2012/11/20 18:30)

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