KARACHI – The Pakistan Humanitarian Forum marks the international disaster risk reduction day by organizing a virtual session with a focus on the current year theme “International cooperation for developing countries to reduce their disaster risk and disaster losses”. The virtual session was attended by eminent speakers, intellectuals, development, and humanitarian practitioners. Special Assistant to Climate Change, Mr. Amin Aslam also shared his recorded message for the important event.
Over the years, Pakistan managed to cope with the disaster such as 2005 earthquakes, floods in 2021, pandemic in 2020 but there is high need to work more on disaster preparedness and mitigation at all levels said Mr. Javed Jabbar, Former Senator of Pakistan. He further added there is need to expedite efforts at regional level such as the forum like SAARC which can play an important role for extensive cooperation for disaster mitigation and preparedness for South Asian countries. He further added there is need to work more on robust data and research which focus that how to anticipate disaster as currently there is hardly such data and research available in the country. He also stressed to activate official and non-official diplomacy channels which forge regional, national and international partnerships for disaster risk reduction.
Natural calamities are unavoidable so there is high need to focus more on right policies and practices which may help to stop natural calamities turning into disasters said, Mr. Abid Qayyum Sulehri. He further added, disaster risk preparedness should be the top priority of the government at all levels though Pakistan currently focusing on various initiatives led by NDMA but there should be more focused strategies to deal with regional disasters or to work in collaboration with neighboring countries during disasters.
He further added, there is high need to build alliances both at regional and international level to cope up with climate change to mitigate the risk of disasters. He also stressed to focus more on global parentship for human security as in such a digital age we can’t work in isolation and we have to reaffirm our commitment on sustainable development goals related to disaster reduction with a motto “to leave no one behind”.
Building resilience especially for communities should be the high priority of the government at all levels to mitigate the risk of disaster. Welthungerhilfe is highly focusing on building resilient communities in urban, semi urban and rural setting in Pakistan, said Mr. Amjad Ahmed, Disaster Risk Finance Coordinator, Welthunferhilfe. There is high need to sensitize communities on early responses to cope up with disaster.
Pakistan is among those countries which are badly impacted by Climate Change. We are among the top ten countries, and this is not the list of our choice said Mr. Amin Aslam, Special Assistant for Prime Minister on Climate Change. We are very prone toward to disaster and the only strategy to mitigate the climate risk is the disaster risk reduction. It is high time to speak more on disaster risk reduction and to come up with robust policies and programmes to mitigate the risk of climate and disaster. I highly congratulate PHF for organizing webinar on such important subject. We need to build more awareness on the subject at all levels.
Disaster impact people lives in many ways such as the impact of COVID-19 on people lives especially on the livelihood is quite catastrophic. Such impact really urges the international and national cooperation to cope up with the risk of such disaster at all levels. It is high time to focus on anticipatory response, early action to manage the disaster said, Taheeni from European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid (ECHO). She further added, ECHO believes to reduce the potential impact of crisis specifically on vulnerable people and believe on timely response. Disaster preparedness is the top priority of the ECHO and we are stressing on regional and international cooperation for disaster risk reduction at all levels.
She stressed, there is urgent need that all development partners, government must focus on disaster preparedness and stress more on regional and international cooperation.
Disaster Risk reduction, preparation, mitigation, and timely response is very highly important. We need to focus more on international and national cooperation to mitigate the risk of disaster at all levels, said Mr. Farhan, Ex-Comm Chairperson and Country Coordinator of CESVI. He further added that people in Pakistan are very resilient people in the world and always cope up with disaster so it’s a high time to work on disaster mitigation strategies and to activate international and national forum for substantial action at all levels said, Mr. Farhan.
