Bevanda and Wahilström on Disaster Risk Reduction

Chairman of the Council of Ministers of BIH Vjekoslav Bevanda met today with SRSG for Disaster Risk Reduction Margaret Wahlström. 

Chairman Bevanda informed the guest on the establishment of a National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, in line with conclusions of the UN-sponsored 2005 World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, held in Japan.

“The aim of the National Platform is to adjust positions on needed actions for disaster risk reduction, assess risks, harmonise activities, and build awareness in order to arrive at the highest quality national level response to related threats and risks. The purpose of the National Platform implementation is to ensure preventive actions before a disaster takes place”, Chairman Bevanda said at the meeting.

He added that floods and fires over the past two years were a sign of necessity to detect omissions in the prevention system and to work intensively on their elimination at the regional level, as they were a mover to launch, upon an invitation of Chairman Bevanda, a regional cooperation initiative with a view at supporting prevention activities for case of disasters.

Mrs Wahlström expressed her gratitude for support in organising today’s National Platform launch, and proposed that future focus should be placed to cooperation with private sector and local self-government structures in order to ensure disaster-resilient cities and raise awareness, including the cooperation with MPs. She said that through the coordination mechanism BIH may achieve a lot on the issue of catastrophe prevention.

Chairman Bevanda received an invitation to participate at the IV Global Conference on Economic and Financial Aspects of Disasters and Mechanism for Their Prevention, that will be held in Geneva in this may. A high level ministerial meeting will be held at the side-lines of the conference.

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