New Delhi: An international conference on disaster risk reduction opened in New Delhi on October 6 with speakers stressing the need to find solution within affected communities.
More than 200 delegates from around the world are attending the two-day conference organized by Caritas India, the social action wing of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India at the headquarters of Indian Defence Studies Analysis.
Others supporting the conference are Partners for Resilience, International Rice Research Institute, Catholic Relief Service and Sphere India.
Caritas India executive director Father Freddie D’Souza said his agency’s 53-years of experience in reaching out to people affected by disasters has convinced it the need to involve affected communities involve in disaster risk reduction.
The Catholic priest also noted that much of Caritas effort goes for relief and rehabilitation. However, it also invests considerable time and resources on pre-disaster preparedness.
“For the past decade the whole concept of disaster response underwent a strategic change from relief and rehabilitation to community-based disaster preparedness to community managed disaster risk reduction,” he noted.
Father D’Souza also said that Caritas has always tried to protect the lives of people most vulnerable to natural and manmade disasters. He also claimed that his aid agency has partnered with other agencies to respond effectively and efficiently to all big and small disasters in India.
“Responding disasters for long Caritas India felt that preparedness of the community vulnerable to disaster will play a key role in minimizing the risk of their lives and livelihood,” he added.
And for last two decades,Caritas has “relentlessly” worked to prepare the community and the country to face disaster with full preparedness. It includes task forces at community level, enhancing sustainable adaptable alternatives and resilient livelihood practices, engaging with the government both at national and regional level, he added.
According to UN, more than 1.5 billion people have been affected by disasters across the globe between 2005 and 2015. Caritas India has reached out to a significant 1 million people affected people during the period through its relief and recovery services across 14 major emergencies in India investing around 5 billion rupees.
UNDP Country head Jaco Cilliers too said solutions to building disaster resilience lie with the communities.
He urged the delegates to make the plans crisis responsive, not just crisis-driven.
Caritas India chairperson Bishop Lumen Monteiro of Agartala saw the conference as an “opportunity to agree on the post 2015 UN Framework” for disaster risk reduction, especially for enhanced social and economic measures.
Uma Shankar Singh, a senior scientist and researcher at International Rice Research Institute, spoke about stress-tolerant rice for Africa, and South Asia. Research, he asserted, is insignificant without the ability to reach out to our farmers.
Vinod K Sharma, executive vice-chairperson of Sikkim State Disaster Risk Reduction Authority, noted plans have relatively failed whenever communities were ignored in decision making.
He cited exemplary works of the Sikkim government in considering community while building houses in rural areas in the aftermath of the earthquake in 2011.
He called India’s local wisdom of climate adaptability as scientific and an asset to many disaster prone Asian countries.
Sphere India chief executive officer Vikrant Mahajan called for more collaboration among working NGOs in addition to the practice of sharing and exchanging learning in the realm of disaster risk reduction.