82510 Issue #9 August 2013 Projecthighlights Working Together for Identifying Disaster Risk in Pakistan Overview The inaugural meeting of the National Working Group The World Bank Disaster Risk Management (DRM) (NWG) on Risk Assessment was held on 19 November, team recommended that the NDMA should take the 2012 under the leadership of the National Disaster leadership of disaster risk assessment by creating a Management Authority (NDMA) with the technical forum comprising of technical agencies such as the support of the World Bank Pakistan. The meeting Meteorological Department, the Geological Survey, the marked a major shift in the identifying risk in Pakistan, Space Agency and other relevant stakeholders. This was which continues to be affected by various disasters a new concept for the NDMA and the technical agencies especially earthquakes and floods almost on a yearly but was welcomed by all stakeholders as it provided basis and has suffered a loss of more than US$ 16 an opportunity for building their capacity and utilizing billion due to natural disasters in the last decade alone. the existing expertise and indigenous knowledge in While the entire country is vulnerable to natural undertaking risk assessments. This was evident by the hazards, there has yet to be a national level risk feedback given by the participants in the inaugural assessment of Pakistan which is considered as the meeting and they were unanimous in the opinion that first step to enable the government to prioritize such an initiative was long overdue and confirmed their investments for mitigating the risk these hazards pose commitment to participate in the national working group. to the human capital and infrastructure. Moreover, Commitment and ownership of the Government in order for the risk assessment to be owned by was evident from the from the remarks of the Federal the Government and to have its recommendations Minister for Science and Technology who opened the incorporated in the national development process, this meeting and termed creation of the National Working task needs to be undertaken by the national technical Group as a timely step towards a resilient Pakistan. entities. Previously there had been some standalone He further stressed on utilizing local knowledge and risk assessments undertaken by consultants who expertise to identify risk in order to prioritize and prepared their reports which were not used by policy guide mitigation measures considering the limited makers and development planners. resources of the government. Photo: Pakistan Earthquake Devastation, October 2005, UN Photo/Evan Schneider. Projecthighlights Photo: Flooding in Punjab Province, Pakistan, August 2010, UN Photo/WFP/Amjad Jamal purchasing these images from the market.” This was only one of the benefits that could come out of such collaboration. To ensure the NWG and the technical working groups achieve the goal of developing risk information for Pakistan, it is aimed to have a shared platform that enables these agencies to share their geospatial datasets and maps on hazards and exposure. Also to ensure that risk information is widely accessible to all decision makers, this platform can also host newly developed datasets, hazard and risk information. For this purpose, a Pakistan Shared Platform for Disaster Resilience Information is being created which aims to reduce the impact of disasters and climate change The Chairman of the National Disaster Management in Pakistan by providing all levels of government, the private Authority also termed the creation of the NWG as a critical sector, and the public with better information and tools to step which would serve as the foundation for consolidating support their decisions. disaster risk related interventions in the country. During their meetings, the technical working groups identified their capacity gaps and requested for training to Capacity building address them. The World Bank in cooperation with NDMA arranged comprehensive training courses on earthquake, This initiative is supported through a Global Facility for floods and exposure modeling. The trainings were attended Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) and Department by the relevant technical agencies and were imparted by for International Development (DFID) funded project for international experts in the respective fields. Rather than “Scaling Up Innovation in Disaster Risk Management” which imparting a pre-determined curriculum, the trainers took aims to build robust and nationally agreed evidence on stock of the expertise and local knowledge and tailored the disaster risk to inform investments, policy and programming course contents to take advantage of the existing knowledge that will increase the physical and fiscal resilience to natural and capacities resulting in a two way learning process. hazards. Among other interventions, the project will enhance The enhanced capacities of the national level technical capacity of, and build systems, within Pakistan Government agencies would now be put to the test as they jointly undertake to produce, manage, communicate and utilize data and a multi-hazard risk assessment of the federal capital. This information on natural hazard risks. Creation of the National would be the first risk assessment of its kind in Pakistan which Working Group is the first and most important step towards would be led by the national entities with technical support achieving this objective. from the World Bank. Once completed, it would form the model The first meeting of the NWG was followed up by for undertaking risk assessment of the entire country. As the creation of technical working groups on earthquake, flood, risk information is fed into the national platform, it would exposure/vulnerability information and communication. enable the development planners to take into consideration These groups will be driving the risk assessment process the risk posed by natural disasters and enable investment in forward in Pakistan through the development of work plans, mitigation to increase resilience in Pakistan. commitment of resources and cross-fertilization of skills, data and knowledge. I get tremendous satisfaction The real benefit of the NWG are the technical agencies who were surprised to learn that a huge amount of data is in helping the Government better available with other public sector entities and could be shared with them free of cost. An official of the Geological Survey prepare for disasters which ultimately commented, “Our department needed some satellite images saves lives and minimizing the and only today I found out in the meeting of the technical working group that the Space Agency has those images and impacts to adverse natural events. can share them with us free of cost. Our department will save —Haris Khan, Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Specialist, resources by collaborating with the Space Agency rather than South Asia Region, The World Bank Disclaimer: The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Executive Directors of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, The World Bank or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. 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