NDMA holds capacity building workshop

Islamabad: National Humanitarian Network and ActionAid Pakistan is holding a four day (19-22 February) training workshop on Surge Emergency Response Teams (SERT) under the leadership of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).

The initiative has been undertaken to strengthen local capacity to respond in the emergency situation by developing a national roster under Transforming Surge Capacity Project. Addressing the opening session of the workshop, Member Operation NDMA, Brigadier Mukhtar Ahmed said on Monday that NDMA has started the process to formulate a national level strategy framework for bringing sector experts and volunteers under National Umbrella to build a national system. He stated that under this national framework, NDMA intends to maintain database of all the human and technical resources available with all stakeholders and other organizations operating in the Disaster Management System of Pakistan.

This database would not only be helpful in deployment of resources in case of any emergency at national level but will also enable NDMA while putting together resources to extend aid and assistance to other countries during emergencies.

Transforming Surge Competencies initiative is taken with the objective to increase capacity of skilled surge personnel for civil society at international, national and regional levels, sharing of good practice on surge management practices, collaboration on national, regional and international pilot projects and shared rosters to improve organisational surge capacity and to establish strong evidence to show how collaborative surge approaches work.

The expected outcome of the project is more effective and collaborative surge capacity to respond to emergencies at national and international levels. In the humanitarian context, surge capacity is ability of an organisation to rapidly and effectively increase its available resources at a specific geographic location to meet increased demand and to alleviate suffering in any given population.