Print – The Times of India – Mangaluru Bureau
MANGALURU: A Mangalurean Doctor will deliberate on how frameworks on disaster risk reduction can be strengthened by mainstreaming health in all policies across different sectors and agencies at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in Thailand on August 29.
Escap is the regional development arm of the United Nations for the Asia-Pacific region. It is made up of 53 Member States and nine Associate Members, with a geographical scope that stretches from Turkey in the west to the Pacific island nation of Kiribati in the east, and from the Russian Federation in the north to New Zealand in the south.
Dr. Edmond Fernandes, Founder and CEO, Center for Health and Development (CHD Group) has been invited as Resource person to address the Regional forum on translating global frameworks into practice.
Dr Edmond said Asian countries are being brought together in this dialogue on what is the way forward to optimise and translate global policies into grass-root actions.
Dr. Edmond will be highlighting how south-south co-operation at the ASEAN level can create a new world order in strengthening International development and achieving disaster resilience and meaningfully bringing climate change adaptation practices. Different countries will also share their experience and how disaster response is handled and sharing of learning and best practices will take place through this Asia level dialogue, he added.
The coherence approach is emphasised in the various global, regional and national frameworks pertaining to disaster risk reduction and the United Nations member States in Asia and the Pacific have called for enhancing regional co-operation to build resilience to disasters in the region. Besides that, Dr. Edmond will be holding parallel meetings with Chulalongkorn University, Mahidol University and other Institutes in Thailand to further the public health agenda for Asia.
Three landmark frameworks- the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change have all called upon member States to mainstream disaster resilience in the context of sustainable development.
The role of local governments in decentralizing risk informed development and adapting the global agendas to local milieu and constraints is in the process of being fully operationalized.