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Pakistan: UN Stresses Need For Risk Reduction

Pakistan: UN Forum Stresses Need For Disaster Risk Reduction After Recent Floods

New York, Nov 11 2010 12:10PM

Disaster risk reduction is crucial to strength Pakistan’s capacity to respond and withstand emergencies like the recent floods that killed nearly 2,000 people and caused $9.7 billion in damages to infrastructure, homes, crops and livestock, experts at a United Nations meeting have stressed.

Delegates attending the two-day regional meeting, organized by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific ("http://www.unescap.org/" ESCAP) and which ended yesterday in Bangkok, discussed a wide range of preparedness issues, including appropriate housing, urban and land use planning, flood forecasting, education, advocacy and community-based disaster risk management.

They noted that the destruction caused by the floods, which affected more than 20 million people, was compounded by existing humanitarian and development weaknesses in Pakistan.

“We have to make our communities more resilient to all vulnerabilities and future disasters,” "http://www.unescap.org/unis/press/2010/nov/g58.asp" said Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Secretary of ESCAP. “We have to make safer the lives of our people, particularly the poor. In effect, we have to build a culture of prevention and systems of social protection to address old and new vulnerabilities,” she said.

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World Bank and the Asian Development Bank representatives highlighted the findings of the post-disaster needs assessment which found that the floods caused $9.7 billion in damages to infrastructure, farms and homes, as well as other direct and indirect losses.

A tripartite core group made up of ESCAP, the UN country team and the Government of Pakistan will develop a mechanism to incorporate disaster risk reduction into early recovery plans and into future development plans.

“Pakistan was already facing an internally displaced persons crisis and long-term development challenges before the floods occurred,” said Ms. Heyzer. “Despite these huge challenges there have been major successes achieved in people returning to their home areas.

“Today Pakistan urgently needs not just a reconstruction and recovery plan, but a strategy to build a new future,” she added.

Representatives from across the Asia-Pacific region – including China, Bangladesh and the Republic of Korea – shared experiences on building and improving disaster resilient communities and cities, citing practical examples.

In a related development, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) this week appointed award-winning celebrities from the worlds of music and sport as ambassadors for Pakistan’s early recovery effort from the country’s unprecedented floods.

Pakistani pop singer Hadiqa Kiani and tennis player Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi will use their celebrity and broad appeal to help UNDP raise the profile of the needs of more than 20 million people starting to rebuild their lives after the floods that have devastated the country since July.

They will deliver messages of support for early recovery efforts as UNDP mounts efforts in 39 of the worst affected areas of the country to restore livelihoods through job creation, repair of basic community infrastructure, and strengthening of local government offices to get public services running again.

ENDS

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