Islamabad: NDMA Chairman National Disaster Management Authority Lt. General Omar Mahmood Hayat has said that NDMA has renewed focus on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and preparedness, for ensuring resilience building in the face of emerging multiple hazards particularly, those induced by climate change. He stated this while addressing the inaugural session of Strategic Dialogue on Disaster & Climate Resilience in Pakistan. This Strategic Dialogue was organized by NDMA in collaboration with the World Bank Pakistan. The representative of donor community, Development Partners and UN Agencies based in Islamabad attended the dialogue.
NDMA chairman has apprised the participants that recently launched Asia-Pacific Disaster Report, 2017 suggests that Pakistan, along with other South Asian countries, is likely to have two to three times more disasters by the year 2030. In this context, NDMA has shifted its focus to building resilience through technical and HR capacity enhancement, the chairman said. “We have put in place institutional mechanisms, systems, policies, frameworks, and are undertaking a number of initiatives to strengthen capacity to cope up with the future disasters”. He highlighted importance of various stakeholders to work in a close collaboration so that synergies could be created. He emphasised that this dialogue was an endeavour towards bringing together all stakeholders on a joint platform to support a collaborative approach in moving forward for resilience building in Pakistan.
While highlighting the overall objective of the strategic dialogue Muhammad Idrees Masud, NDMA’s Member Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) briefed the participant on NDMA’s future plans and priorities, and said that this forum provided the donors a platform for identifying their inputs for enhancing disaster resilience in Pakistan. Ms. Milanda Good, World Bank’s Country Director urged the need of a concerted efforts to mitigate disaster and climate change hazards faced by Pakistan. She assured World Bank’s all possible support to Pakistan in dealing with all such challenges.
This strategic dialogue provides an opportunity to development partners with interest in disaster and climate resilience to hold a discussion on the needs for resilience and agree on the approaches and way forward. NDMA solicited input, opinions and support of donors and development partners for its future plans and priorities for Disaster Risk Management in Pakistan. Donners and Development Partners highly appreciated the way they were being engaged by NDMA and Government of Pakistan and assured of all possible support in this regard.