Disaster Risk Reduction 2013 - the 28th DMISA Conference - 11-12 September 2013, President Hotel, Bloemfontein, Mangaung Municipality, Free State Province, South Africa
The
"Making Cities Resilient" campaign addresses issues of local
governance and urban risk while drawing upon previous ISDR Campaigns on safer
schools and hospitals, as well as on the sustainable urbanizations principles
developed in the UN-Habitat World Urban Campaign 2009-2013. With the support
and recommendation by many partners and participants, and a Mayor's statement
made during the 2011 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, the
"Making Cities Resilient" campaign will continue to run until at least
2015.
Mayors and local governments are both the key targets and drivers for
the campaign. Local
government officials are faced with the threat of disasters on a daily basis
and need better access to policies and tools to effectively deal with them. The
Hyogo Framework for Action 2005- 2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and
Communities to Disasters offers solutions for local governments and actors to
manage and reduce urban risk. Urban risk reduction provides opportunities for
capital investments through infrastructure upgrades and improvements, building
retrofits for energy efficiency and safety, urban renovation and renewal,
cleaner energies, and slum upgrading. Local governments are the closest level
to the citizens and to their communities. They play the first role in
responding to crises and emergencies. They deliver essential services to their
citizens (health, education, transport, water, etc.), which need to be made
resilient to disasters.
Making cities safe from disaster is everybody's business. National
governments, local government associations, international, regional and civil
society organizations, donors, the private sector, academia and professional
associations as well as every citizen need to be engaged in reducing their risk
to disasters. All these stakeholders need to be on board, take on their role
and contribute to building disaster resilient cities.
The National Disaster Management Centre has introduced Phase 2 of the International Strategy for
Disaster Reduction Campaign theme for 2010-2015: "Making Cities (Municipalities) Resilient: My
City (Municipality) Is
Getting Ready� (to implement DRR) at the DMISA Conference
2012. The campaign strategy is that it should aim at
creating an enabling environment of risk reduction at local level
through the following strategic approaches:
Political dimension:to
attain commitments at local and national level to reduce disaster risk in a
sustainable way by increasing investments within existing development
programmes and budgets.
Technical dimension:to
facilitate the implementation of disaster risk reduction measures in municipal
planning and implementation (i.e. through IDPs, compliance with building codes,
etc).
Communications/Advocacy
dimension:to enhance awareness about disaster risk among
different stakeholders, including local leaders, communities and other
role players.
The Campaign Partners and
Target Audience:
Primary audience:
Municipal structures: A Municipal
planning process should be participatory, allowing all stakeholders to consider
how best to integrate disaster risk reduction elements and the �ten essentials�
into their development plans and activities.
(http://www.unisdr.org/campaign/resilientcities/toolkit/essentials)
Communities, civil
society formations, Non-Governmental Organizations/Community Based
Organizations, Faith Based Organizations can play a
major role through "community action planning�. The importance of participative, community-based
approaches is generally acknowledged in the fields of development, disaster
preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery measures.
Secondary audience:
National and provincial government
To develop appropriate policies
and legislative frameworks.
To build adequate capacity and
allocate resources.
To involve non-state actors to
support implementation
Academic institutions:
To
design and implement DRM/R education and training programmes.
Awareness
creation on DRM/R issues.
Development
and roll-out of advocacy, awareness and research programmes.
Knowledge
management and advisory services (i.e. information and advisory services).
DRM
professional bodies (e.g DMISA, etc)
Abstracts: DMISA is inviting papers dealing with creating an enabling
environment of risk reduction at local level by getting communities ready through building resilience.
Any aspect of disaster management and disaster risk reduction can be
discussed as long as it deals with the challenge of making communities
resilient. Abstracts for approval, of
no more than 300 words, should be submitted electronically to the Conference
Coordinator � Ms Erika Swart: erikaswart@mweb.co.za. Abstracts should clearly state the purpose,
results and conclusions of the work to be described in the final paper. Language: English. Last day for submission of
abstract: 1 July 2013. Last day for submission of final paper:
16 August 2013.
Past Conferences:
2012
12-13 September 2012
Karibu Leisure Resort and Conference Centre/NMN Grand Hotel, Tzaneen, Limpopo Province, South Africa
