From left to right: Marino Deocariza, panelist on urban planning; Bhichit Rattakul, keynote speaker of the event; Pauline Tweedie, Deputy Country Representative of Thailand of The Asia Foundation; Anna Brown, panelist on current state and future needs of medium-sized cities; General (ret.) Bunchon Chawansin, HDFF’s Chairman; Dr. Wilfried Herrmann, Executive Director of HDFF.
ASEAN Community 2015: Challenges for Urban Disaster Mitigation
A group of 20+ representatives of embassies, (inter)national non-governmental organisations and private businesses had gathered for this second Chairman’s Circle of 2014, organised by the Human Development Forum Foundation (HDFF) with the support of The Asia Foundation.
Pauline Tweedie, Deputy Country Representative of Thailand of The Asia Foundation, giving her welcoming remarks
Dr. Bhichit Rattakul, Special Advisor of the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC), presenting on community-based disaster risk reduction in ASEAN member states
Following welcoming remarks by HDFF Chairman General (retired) Bunchon Chawansin and the Deputy Country Representative to Thailand of The Asia Foundation, Ms Pauline Tweedie, the event opened with a keynote speech by Dr Bhichit Rattakul. Dr. Rattakul is the special advisor of the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) and former governor of Bangkok (1996-2000). Starting with the 2011 Bangkok flood as an example, he focused on community-based disaster risk management (CBDRM) and mentioned there is much room for cooperation between local communities and national governments. He felt CBDRM was strong in the ASEAN region due to de-centralization, but the role of media and information has much more potential than is currently utilized. He also discussed the trend of ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Managemetn and Emergency Responses (ADDMER) which has been successful in 10 countries and is expected to continue until the new work plan in 2015.
Download Bhichit Rattakul’s presentation here.
Anna Brown, Associate Director of the Rockefeller Foundation, presenting on Protecting Medium-Sized Cities from Climate Change and Disasters: Current State and Future Needs
The first panel of the day started with a presentation by Ms Anna Brown, the Associate Director of Rockefeller Foundation Asia. The theme for the panel was future opportunities and challenges for urban disaster mitigation in ASEAN. Ms. Brown’s presentation discussed the current and growing trends in protecting medium-sized cities. She mentioned Asian cities are struggled to meet infrastructure demands as urbanized areas continue to grow. However, the capacities of cities have difficulty improving fast enough to respond to these changes. She also discussed the trend of population growth and changing demographics which affect development trends and certain vulnerable groups.
(Download Anna Brown’s article here.)
Marino Deocariza, Urban Risk Management Specialist at the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC), presenting on Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation into Urban Planning
The second panel of the day was provided by Mr Marino Deocariza, Urban Risk Management Specialist at the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC). He discussed the need for mainstreaming disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation into urban planning. He explained that disasters will expose the weakness and faults in defective city planning. Mainstreaming issues into urban planning includes climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, gender and development, sustainable development, biodiversity conservation, and much more. Yet, Mr. Deocariza warns that sustainable urban planning is essential while climate change is becoming more violent and the physical, social, and economic vulnerabilities are increasing.
Download his presentation here.
- Debate and discussion
Marino Deocariza receiving token of apprecation from HDFF’s Chairman General (ret.) Bunchon Chawansin.
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