The Asia-Pacific Partnership for Disaster Risk Reduction (APP-DRR) Forum was held on 12-13 November 2019 in Brisbane, Australia. ADRRN as the Civil Society Stakeholder Group representative attended the forum, bringing updates and voices from the grass-root level, sharing current status of disaster risk reduction progress in Asia-Pacific and discuss means to accelerate it. This is to support preparation leading up to the 2020 Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (APMCDRR).
For APMCDRR 2020, ADRRN has launched its campaign – Let’s Make the Decade Count, to support accelerating initiatives towards 2030. This campaign is designed to look into current and future modalities that support civil societies in making Asia as the most resilient region by 2030. ADRRN puts forward three main strategies in our effort to really transform societies into becoming more resilient:
1. Thematic Hubs
Thematic Hubs of ADRRN are a set of key focal points that promote, plan, and implement specific theme for ADRRN’s strategic interest. As per today, ADRRN Thematic Hubs consist of:
1. Localization Hub, India
2. Innovation Hub, Japan
3. Quality and Accountability Hub, Pakistan
4. Leadership in Emergency Action, Preparedness and Surge (LEAPS) Hub, India
5. Community Based Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (CBDRRM) Hub, Philippines
6. Earthquake Risk Management (ERM) Hub, Nepal
7. Disaster Response Preparedness Hub, Malaysia
2. Building Resilience Through Innovation
Focus on the promotion of innovative activities of member NGOs and institutionalize innovation efforts to improve efficiency and effectiveness of works within the network. In partnership with the Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF), the focus on innovation aims for inclusive approach to problem solving that blends participation, systems thinking and design to adapt to the new reality of the world.
3. Local Leadership
One aspect of promoting inclusivity in building community resilience is by nurturing local leadership. Focussed investment for the local level in developing effective cooperation for development of disaster resilient infrastructure and enabling environment for promotion of DRR work is important, while ensuring local development plans that are risk informed, aligned with context-specific DRR strategies. The Asian Local Leaders Forum for Disaster Resilience (ALL4DR), a regional structure for national and local CSOs to share and learn from various countries and their experiences in resilience and response initiatives, is one example how ADRRN play the role in promoting local leadership to increase effective community mobilization and representation.
Civil societies by the virtue of being locally based have better understanding of the local context, specialized expertise, innovative programming and proven outreach to communities who lack access to large-scale programming. Therefore, more local leaders need to be empowered for them to mobilize local resources. Recognizing their efforts is hoped to encourage more local leaders to emerge and be part of this challenging journey towards a more resilient future.
