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ICHARM’s Inauguration Anniversary Symposium
On May 10th in 2006, we held
ICHARM’s Inauguration Anniversary Symposium entitled ‘Towards
Global Water Induced Disaster Reduction - Cooperating through
ICHARM-’ at United
Nations University (http://www.unu.edu/index.htm).
Participants of this symposium were mostly from universities,
private companies, independent organizations and foundations
those working in various fields such as disaster prevention,
water management, agriculture, meteorology, construction,
insurance, marine etc. Opinions were exchanged among participants,
which were 80 in numbers.
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Objectives and action policy of ICHARM was explained by the
Director of the Centre
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Active discussion was done by about 70 participants.
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In
the former part of the symposium, members of
ICHARM introduced summary reports on ICHARM,
its action plan and its implementation process.
Specific issues on immediate actions were elucidated
by the director of the centre Professor Kuniyoshi
Takeuchi. In the later part, we held a panel
discussion moderated by Professor Kaoru Takara,
a vice president of the Disaster Prevention Research
Institute (DPRI), Kyoto University. In this discussion,
we exchanged opinions from broad horizon on the
issues concerning what should ICHARM undertake
and what should be expected for reducing recurrent
water disasters worldwide. Many interesting ideas
were suggested and they are summarized below.
- Initiation of needs driven approach is essential
to characterize ICHARM’s activities.
- Disaster prevention techniques developed in
Japan are suitable only for domestic use;
so it is required to customize such techniques
thereby
make them fit in other conditions in respective
countries. Research will be needed to achieve
this
ambition.
- It is important to know that how to determine
the needs of a particular area from the
view point of disaster prevention.
- Combining needs assessment and resources
assessment, proper needs should be determined
with consideration
of realization potential all the time.
- Implementation of comprehensive risk management
needs knowledge and experience in a
broad range of fields; therefore alliance between
ICHARM
and related institutions is imperative.
Meanwhile, there would be a need to establish
an
effective
mechanism that bonds those institutions.
It is also important for ICHARM to
develop a wide
range
of human resources and play an active
role in the
processes.
- Response of community to solve the problems
in a local arena is also important.
- It is noteworthy to work closely with
various related organizations in
connection with training
operation, database building and
field inspection.
In the meantime,
we received specific suggestions from audiences
regarding possible coordination with organizations.
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