China-UK partnership helps Asia alleviate disasters

A China-UK workshop on earthquake relief was held in Beijing last week, five days after British Prime Minister David Cameron' s visit.

Over six days, workshop attracted 40 experts and officials from China, the UN, UK and other Asian countries like Nepal and Bangladesh to share earthquake response experiences through training in medical care, search and rescue, equipment drills and seminars, and signaled a broader picture of the bilateral collaboration.

"China's quake relief capacity building started only ten years ago, but with the government's committed support, our relief capacity has been improved to a high level," said Wang Nianfa, drillmaster at the China National Training Base for Search and Rescue.

"The Wenchuan quake in 2008 was a turning point for China's quake relief capacity, after which we grew very fast. In 2009, China International Search &Rescue Team (CISAR), the country' s first professional rescue crew, passed the INSARAG External Classification (IER) and became the 12th heavy rescue team in the world," said Qu Guosheng, Professor at National Earthquake Response Support Service and Vice President of The International Emergency Management Society.

That means CISAR can provide effective service to quake hit areas as a qualified team and we have established a series of proven mechanisms and working procedures, Qu said.

Wang, who saved 49 lives in Wenchuan and has risked his life in major rescue missions in Haiti, Indonesia and New Zealand as a CISAR member, brought firsthand life-saving expertise to the workshop and shared China' s experience of building the professional rescue team, together with other Chinese experts and officials.

"We saw in this workshop that China has done a good job in post-quake response. From China' s performance, we can set up Nepal' s disaster relief forces, with same procedure, same mechanism and policy," said Pradip Koirala from Ministry of Home Affairs of Nepal.

China is Nepal' s neighbor and China's CISAR team is the nearest to Nepal. If Nepal has big earthquake, China' s team and experience would be vital to Nepal' s quake relief work, Pradip Koirala said.

On average, disasters caused over 65,000 deaths in Asia and affected almost 220 million people each year between 2002 and 2011, according to the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, but regional coordination and cooperation in disaster management is still far from adequate in this world' s most disaster-prone region.

"It is the first time that we knew China had this capacity of disaster relief," said workshop participant Md. Tarik-ul-Islam from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Bangladesh mission.

China will cooperate with Bangladesh and Nepal by studying quake relief policy, sharing information and building pilot communities, said Lai Hongzhou, head of the disaster reduction division of China' s Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA).

This workshop is one part of the Sharing and Learning Program on Community-Based Disaster Management in Asia (CBDM Asia) jointly launched by China's MCA, UK's Department for International Development (DFID) and UNDP in January 2013. It aims to increase resilience to disasters like earthquakes, floods and typhoons in developing countries, by strengthening regional cooperation on community-based disaster risk reduction.

The UK-China Global Development Partnership is a very successful model, which provides a platform for Britain and China to share experience and expertise with other developing countries, said Chris Chalmers, head of DFID China.

"Working with China on regional cooperation in Asia is an opportunity to encourage countries to work together, discuss solutions to common problems and exchange best-practices," said Chalmers.

Besides disaster management, China and UK also launched programs in other fields like health and agriculture to help other developing countries.

China-UK relations not only affects the two countries, but has global significance, said Chinese President Xi Jinping at his meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron earlier this month.

Xi called for the two countries to step up cooperation on international issues and deal with global challenges together.

Cameron said China' s development is epoch-making, benefits the Chinese and offers important opportunities to the world.

A number of Chinese government bodies had been working with DFID in the past decade with programs such as AIDS and tuberculosis prevention, basic education and water resource management, to promote the development of China' s health, education and agriculture sector.

China is already a major force on global development issues, and other developing countries may be able to learn from China' s unparalleled success, said Chalmers.

Under the China-UK Global Development Partnership set up in 2011, the two countries will now focus on working together to reduce poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in other developing countries.