Inter-American Dialogue on Disaster Reduction

In October 1996, the Hemispheric Congress for Disaster Reduction and Sustainable Development was held in Miami, Florida, USA. As a result of this Congress, a Strategic Plan of Action was proposed and participants called for the creation of an Inter-American Dialogue for Disaster Reduction, as a permanent mechanism for the formulation and negotiation of policy initiatives. The call for this type of hemispheric dialogue was reiterated in the Plan of Action of the Bolivia Summit of December 1996. The Dialogue’s mission is to facilitate communication, cooperation and collaboration among individuals and groups committed to insuring disaster reduction throughout the Americas. The Dialogue will provide a framework for channeling policy initiatives on disaster reduction and sustainable development into national, regional and hemispheric political forums.

The first meeting of the Inter-American Dialogue on Disaster Reduction was held in Panama on December 11 and 12, 1997. This meeting had the following objectives:

• Discuss and define mechanisms to implement the Strategic Plan of Action developed in the Hemispheric Congress for Disaster Reduction and Sustainable Development.

• Design and propose a viable framework for the establishment and continuation of the Dialogue itself, as an avenue for the discussion and negotiation of initiatives in the hemisphere.

• Establish a permanent framework for dialogue and negotiation on disaster reduction and sustainable development in the Americas.

• Facilitate the implementation of the Strategic Plan of Action, formulated at the Hemispheric Congress on Disaster Reduction and Sustainable Development held in Miami, Florida, USA, between September 30 and October 2, 1996, and allow for its monitoring and continued development.

• Create an open forum, in which all organizations, institutions and individuals involved in promoting disaster reduction and sustainable development in the hemisphere may participate.

This first meeting of the Dialogue was hosted by the National System of Civil Protection (SINAPROC) of Panama and was organized by the OAS, the Network for Social Studies on Disaster Prevention in Latin America (LA RED), the International Hurricane Center (IHC), the Centro para la Prevención de Desastres Naturales en Centroamérica (CEPREDENAC) and the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Relief Agency (CDERA).

The first Hemispheric Congress on Disaster Reduction and Sustainable Development was held in Miami, Florida, USA, from September 30 to October 2, 1996. The work of the Congress built upon the Plan of Action adopted by the Summit of the Americas in 1994, the recommendations of the 1994 Cartagena Inter-American Conference on Natural Disaster Reduction and the 1994 IDNDR Yokohama Strategy and Plan of Action for a Safer World.

The Hemispheric Congress focused attention on the relationship between disaster risk and economic development formulating policy recommendations for action that link the mutually supportive goals of disaster reduction and sustainable development. A central tenant of the Congress was that sustainable development is impossible if existing risk levels are not reduced. Planning and policy must seriously take into account changing hazard and vulnerability patterns in the hemisphere if future and worsening social and economic losses are to be avoided. Furthermore, concerted action linking government sectors, non-governmental and other organizations of civil society, universities, international organizations and the private sector across the hemisphere was emphasized as the only way of negotiating successful policy initiatives to reduce risk and promote sustainable development.

Working groups produced detailed recommendations on a wide range of crucial areas such as gender issues, vulnerable populations, disaster inventories, housing and land markets, community and local participation, education and training for disaster reduction, incorporating disaster reduction into development projects, green accounting and development, insurance and capital markets, research and information sharing, organizational and institutional systems, urban environmental management, vulnerability analysis and mapping, and disaster reduction and humanitarian aid. The recommendations developed by these working groups, including specific policy initiatives, were compiled and published as a Strategic Plan of Action entitled Linking Disaster Reduction and Sustainable Development.

In coordination with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), PAHO, La Red and the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) the OAS organized and presented the Second Meeting of the Inter-American Dialogue for Disaster Reduction with the theme of Mainstreaming Disaster Reduction in Development (Washington, D.C., December, 1998).

Back