BUILDING RESILIENCE

Sri Lanka welcomes local and international delegates for a major international conference on building resilience to disasters

Heritance Ahungalla, on Sri Lanka’s South West coast, will be the setting for a major international conference on the development of societal resilience to natural and human induced disasters. The International Conference on Building Resilience will welcome International and Sri Lankan academics, practitioners, professionals and policy makers concerned with interdisciplinary approaches to disaster risk reduction, and the development of sustainable communities and cities.  Communities around the world are faced with the threat of disasters on a daily basis. National governments, local government associations, international, regional and civil society organisations, donors, the private sector, academia and professional associations as well as every citizen needs to be engaged in reducing their risk to disasters. All these stakeholders must play their part in contributing to building disaster resilient communities.





The 2013 International Conference on Building Resilience will encourage debate on individual, institutional and societal coping strategies to address the challenges associated with disaster risk. As a country that has been subject to several large-scale disasters in recent years, including the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and a civil war spanning several decades, the organisers feel that Sri Lanka is an ideal setting to explore the challenge of creating resilient communities and cities. It is expected that the conference will serve as an impetus for further action in helping Sri Lanka to tackle the challenge of disaster risk.


The conference outcomes will be used to support the UNISDR Making Cities Resilient: 'My City is getting ready!' campaign (www.unisdr.org/we/campaign/cities), which addresses issues of local governance and urban risk. This year’s event will build upon the national launch of the Making Cities Resilient campaign at the 2011 International Conference on Building Resilience, which was held in Dambulla. Based on the success and stock-taking by partners and participating cities to date, the 2013 conference will support the campaign’s second phase until 2015, with a shift to more implementation support, city-to-city learning and cooperation, local action planning and monitoring of progress in cities.


Consultation of Local Governments towards Post 2015 Framework for DRR (Hyogo Framework for Action 2 - HFA2)


As part of the conference, along with UNISDR, there will be a session on
HFA2. The objectives of the session is   to share experiences and perceptions among Southern Provincial based Local Authorities  and other stakeholders on main components and substantive issues in need of further action, which can be included in the post-2015 Framework for disaster risk reduction. The session seeks to identify regional priorities for the new framework and thus provide preliminary recommendations for the post-2015 Framework for disaster risk reduction.

As part of this International Conference of Building Resilience 2013, the session gathers key DRR stakeholders and is a key opportunity to share, discuss and propose activities and approaches, which should be outlined in the new Framework. The session  also allows international partners to learn from each other and contrast own perceptions and priorities with what is proposed elsewhere in the region. Through its broad representation, the meeting will put together an output document summarizing the findings  towards a post-2015 Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. It is the intention of Centre for Disaster Resilience at the University of Salford that this output document will be complemented by further reports summarizing other local, national, thematic and regional consultations that will take place in the coming two years up to 2015.


Capacity Building on Disaster Resilient Measures, Southern Province, Sri Lanka


Federation of Sri Lankan Local Govt. Authorities, the national local government Association of Sri Lanka, together with the Commissioners office of the Local Government of Southern Province will be organizing a workshop as part of the International Conference on Building Resilience 2013, to enhance the technical knowledge required for the Technical office attached to the Local Authorities in Sri Lanka on Disaster Resilient Measures.

All technical officers attached to  the Local Authorities in the Southern Province and the Commissioner and the Assistant commissioners will be participated in this workshop.  This is the first time where the technical officers of the Local Authorities will be provided with latest techniques on "Building resilience" and it is expected to continue this program in Southern Province and other Provinces of Sri Lanka. Technical officers of the Local Authorities are responsible to provide necessary recommendation for constructions hence this program will help them acquire and practice modern technology in "Building Resilience".

The technical assistance is  provided by  Center of Disaster Resilience- School of Built Environment, Salford University of UK. CDR is contributing to the development of resources to enhance professional practice in the construction and humanitarian sector and  through CDR input to the capacity development of national and local stakeholders.

This capacity building workshop further supports the UNISDR Resilient Cities Programme.  City & local level governments and campaign partners consistently emphasise the critical need to shift the focus from advocacy to practical actions, and to support efforts that build essential capacities. At a stakeholder’s consultation forum, convened on October 19-21, 2012 in Incheon, Republic of Korea, key MCR campaign stakeholders and participating cities identified strategies for building the capacity of cities and local governments to implement the Campaign tools.




There are currently 1,200 cities from a total of 57 countries presently signed up to the campaign. To support capacity development for these cities, partners have called for increased attention to the role of national and regional service providers that can deliver training and facilitate city-to-city learning. This workshop is planned in addressing  this need by providing access to specially-designed short courses for local government officials and academics to upgrade their knowledge and skills relating to disaster risk reduction via open educational resources, including in local languages and  a training forum for national teams, involving organisations that have a mission and mandate for capacity building. It consists of following themes:

1.        Local HFA: Local Government Self-Assessment Tool
2.        Disaster resilient measures considering safety and security on the Constructions in terms of the structure, design, and technology:   location specific planning in construction (in avoiding failures); coastal hazards and mitigation (knowledge on structural design that are prone to sea/coastal erosion; criteria required to pass them as resilient); New construction methods and tools resilient to disasters (Necessary knowledge on assessing buildings condition (design, location, wiring, materials etc) and making recommendations about the risk associated with it)
3.        Impact of integrating disaster risk reduction philosophies into infrastructure reconstruction projects

Accordingly, this  event will  provide guidance and input for the council officers, and construction and humanitarian professionals that attend, and who are working on respective policy changes and plans incorporating disaster risk reduction concepts in their city development plans.
 
GAR 2013 Launch in Sri Lanka


The programme includes a Special Session on the Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction – the UN flagship publication on global disaster risk and disaster risk management. The third edition of this biennial publication, titled From Shared Risk to Shared Value: the Business Case for Disaster Risk Reduction highlights how the transformation of the global economy over the last forty years has led rapid increases in disaster risk in low, medium and high income countries, affecting businesses and societies.


The programme also includes scientific papers and practice notes by leading academics and practitioners, both local and international. All research papers have been subject to double blind peer review by a distinguished international scientific committee. All papers that have been accepted for the conference will be published in an ISBN Book of Abstracts and an ISBN set of proceedings. Selected papers will be published in a special issue of the International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment.


In addition, International Conference on Building Resilience Agenda foresees several  panels focusing on substantial aspects for resilience building identified in the 2010 Hyogo Framework for Action and 2013 Global Assessment Reports on DRR.


The conference is being organised by: the Centre for Disaster Resilience, University of Salford, UK; Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University, Australia; and, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia. The event is being held in association with: UNDP Sri Lanka: UNISDR, ADPC; RICS; the Disaster Management Center, Ministry of Disaster Management; the British High Commission, Colombo; and, the ANDROID disaster resilience network. The local organisers and hosts are: University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka; Eastern University, Sri Lanka and, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.


The programme includes keynotes speeches by: Professor Martin Hall, Vice Chancellor at the University of Salford; Professor Samantha Hettiarachchi, University of Moratuwa and Chairman of the Working Group on Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System (IOTWS) established by UNESCO/IOC; Dan Lewis, Chief of Urban Risk Reduction, UN-Habitat, Kenya; Vinod  Thomas, Director General, Asian Development Bank and, Professor Sarath Abayakoon, Former Vice Chancellor at the University of Peradeniya.


Further details on the conference can be found at www.buildresilience.org/2013.


Company/organisation info        


The University of Salford’s built environment research was ranked 6*, the highest grade in the UK’s competitive RAE in 2001 and 1996, the only built environment research institute in the UK to achieve this. In the 2008 RAE its research in the fields of architecture and the built environment was rated as the best in the UK and finished top in Research Fortnight's 'Research Power' table for built environment. Its built environment research institute has over 110 research-active academic staff, and considerable experience of large research projects – between 1996 and 2009, it completed over £60M of funded research including major EU research projects and networks. Salford has one of three UK government funded research centres in the built environment and attracted contributions from more than 400 industrial partners worldwide. Salford hold several key positions of the CIB (International Council for Research and Innovation in Building & Construction),  a worldwide network of over 5000 experts from about 500 member organisations active in the research community, in industry or in education, who cooperate and exchange information in over 50 CIB Commissions.


The University’s Centre for Disaster Resilience (www.disaster-resilience.salford.ac.uk) is an integral part of Salford’s built environment research and it promotes research and scholarly activity that examines the role of the built environment industry to anticipate and respond to disasters that damage or destroy communities and their built, natural and human environment.  The Centre promotes a multidisciplinary approach to the management of disasters and undertakes cooperative research with a large number of international partners. It is also a key  partner of the UNISDR Resilient Cities campaign, aimed at raising awareness of the need for disaster risk reduction among local governments around the world.


Contact Information        


Professor Dilanthi Amaratunga
Centre for Disaster Resilience, School of the Built Environment
University of Salford, UK
T +44 (0)161 295 4600 r.d.g.amaratunga@salford.ac.uk


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