29/03/2015
Prof. Jalal Al-Dabbeek, Director of Urban Planning and the Disaster Risk Reduction Centre (UPDRRC), and Vice President of the National Agency for Disaster Risk Mitigation, participated in the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, in Sendai, Japan, held from 14th– 18th March, 2015. This conference comes with the objective of considering an international strategy to reduce disaster risks in the world, which completes assessments and reviews of the implementation of the Hyogo Framework on Action during the decades of 2005- 2015. The conference included activities, meetings, and workshops in various related disciplines.
The UPDRRC contribuition in the conference was in presenting the main events and accomplishments of the activities of disaster risk reduction in Palestine, which were carried out by the UPDRRC, as well as presenting the main achievements of the SASPARM Project, implemented through the FP7 European projects.
The conference was opened by Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations, with a wide participation from a number of heads of states, prime ministers, ministers, parliamentarians, and representatives from all agencies of the United Nations. Furthermore, the attendees included many agencies and international associations related to international disaster risk reduction, the World Bank and development, along with representatives from hundreds of municipalities across the globe, experts from universities and scientific institutions, centre experts, hundreds of youth organizations’, women’s societies, and children and individuals with special needs. Indeed, the total number of participants exceeded 6,000. It is worth noting that an official Palestinian delegation composed of a number of governmental institutions’ representatives participated in this conference, as well as other participants from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society and Nablus Municipality.
Closing the conference, the conferees declared “Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015- 2030” Dr. Dabbeek explained that this framework is considered a continuation of Hyogo Framework to build the capacities of all nations and societies to confront disasters during the period of 2005-2015, from which a number of international programmes and events for disaster risk reduction had been established worldwide. He added thatthe coming years will witness new strategies and implementation mechanisms to deal with disaster risk reduction and mitigation during the period of 2015-2030.