Community-based disaster prevention urged at intl forum

Delegates have urged development of community-based disaster management (CBDM) at an international forum on disaster relief that ended on Friday in Nanchang, capital of east China's Jiangxi Province.

Representatives from China, Britain, Bangladesh, Nepal and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) attended the two-day meeting to share experience in disaster prevention and relief.

Mary Hunt of Britain's Department for International Development said that helping developing countries protect themselves against future disasters is among "the most effective ways of spending aid," and the CBDM Asia Project sits at the heart of that objective.

The project is sponsored by Britain and features participation from China, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Hunt said that in the face of challenges ranging from global climate change, population growth and urbanization to disaster relief, governments should build an effective early warning mechanism, which is more meaningful in risk control than post-disaster relief.

Lai Hongzhou of the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs told the meeting that China's disaster prevention awareness has been greatly improved since the devastating Wenchuan earthquake in 2008.

Since then, a total of 5,408 communities in over 30 provinces and municipalities have been turned into government-sponsored showcases of how to mitigate the effects of natural disaster.

Lai said China's disaster prevention and relief has been mostly carried out with governments taking the major role. Public awareness of disaster prevention, however, is still weak.

"Grassroots governments and volunteer organizations have not fully exercised their power in disaster prevention," he said.

Yang Shenghu, a civil affairs official from Mangshi City in southwest China's Yunnan Province, suggested China should learn from developed countries in improving disaster prevention "soft power," which sees active public participation in disaster prevention.

Three counties in China have carried out the CBDM Asia program. They are Yongxin County of east China's Jiangxi Province, Jiaojiang District of Taizhou City in east China's Zhejiang Province and Mangshi in Yunnan Province.

Yongxin was chosen because it has been hit frequently by floods. The other two were picked for their susceptibility to typhoons and earthquakes.

About 80 percent of the world's natural disasters happen in Asia. Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan said in his 1999 report "Facing the Humanitarian Challenge: Towards a Culture of Prevention" that building a culture of prevention is not easy. While the costs of prevention have to be paid in the present, its benefits lie in a distant future.