ISLAMABAD: The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Pakistan and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) to foster disaster resilience in the country, Tuesday, signed a Letter of Understanding (LoU).
Shabnam Baloch, country director IRC-Pakistan and Raza Iqbal on behalf of NDMA signed the LoU in the presence of Chairman NDMA Lt Gen Inam Haider Malik.
Through this partnership, NDMA and IRC are committed to sharing learning resources, technical expertise, and efforts to address the impacts of climate change and disasters. Their collaborative endeavours aim to foster a more resilient society in Pakistan, ensuring better preparedness and response mechanisms for future challenges.
This initiative marks a significant collaboration between NDMA Pakistan leading disaster management authority and IRC, a global humanitarian organisation. The objective of the initiative is to formalize commitment to enhancing resilience in Pakistan.
Speaking on the occasion, the NDMA chairman said that NDMA’s National Emergencies Operation Center (NEOC)shared a comprehensive outlook on potential hazards and emergencies expected in the next six months. This crucial information serves as a foundation for these organisations to strategize and outline their response plans effectively, ensuring readiness and swift action in the face of adversity. He called for the incorporation of anticipatory actions for resilient interventions in humanitarian organisation’s annual plans.
The scope of this collaboration encompasses joint efforts in strengthening community-based disaster risk management/reduction models, creating a toolkit of best practices and the outlook for anticipatory actions. This includes consultations on innovative programs and stakeholder engagement for strengthening resilience in communities, civil society organizations (CSOs), and other local institutions. The partnership involves extending technical assistance for the development of a multi-sectoral resilience building initiatives, through capacity-building sessions for stakeholders and technical support for the robust functioning of NEOC.
In the realm of policy advocacy, the NDMA and the IRC will collaborate on providing technical support to academic working groups focusing on Disaster Management, Preparedness, and Resilience building upon evidence-based research analysing existing policy frameworks and alignment with ongoing multi-sectoral climate adaptive efforts. Both entities will also jointly host engagements for the dissemination of findings and learnings with relevant stakeholders nationally and provincially.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024