Vietnam, ASEAN Ok Draft Joint Statement on Boosting Disaster Management

ASEAN ministers have adopted a first-time draft of the ASEAN statement on enhancing cooperation in natural disaster management, at a closing ceremony of a meeting in Vietnam’s capital city of Hanoi. The consensus was reached at the second ministerial meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP) to the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response closed in Hanoi on May 30. The draft will be submitted to the ASEAN Summit later this year. The bloc will organize a meeting with partners to mobilize resources from its member countries and international donors to raise capacity in dealing with natural calamities, ASEAN Secretary General Le Luong Minh said. Addressing the event, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung noted that during the last ten years, the annum number of deaths and missing people caused by disasters in Vietnam has escalated to 300. Disasters have also cost Vietnam 1.5% of its GDP. Vietnam has designed national strategies for natural disaster prevention and relief by 2020 and for climate change response, while issuing many important legal documents in the field, including Laws on Water Resource and Natural Disaster Prevention and Fighting, the PM added. Mr. Minh also announced that participants agreed to set up the Revolving Fund worth $10,000 for emergency relief as well as to organize an exercise on responding to natural disasters in Hanoi and an ASEAN Day for Natural Disaster Management in Thailand this Oct. In recent years, natural disasters in the region have been more diverse, unpredictable and increasingly large, especially sea-level rises, salinization, earthquakes and tsunamis. Many countries that rarely had natural disasters in the past now have to burden their devastating consequences. (baodientu.chinhphu.vn May 30, Vietnamplus.vn May 30, Tuoi Tre May 31 p2)