Part 1 of a series
A Hyogo Framework murdered by obsolescence
With all the resources the United Nations wields, there will always be issues on whether its issuances, promulgations and declarations of various names and types meet with the compliance of its member states on a ratio of at least 1:50. However, the more realistic figure may be 1:150 or higher. That for every 150 issuances, only one out of 150 member countries religiously abides by its issuances must be painful to admit.
But this does not harm the United Nations in any way, for whether the members act like delinquents, the UN shall continue to exist as long as the members keep paying their dues.
About two years from this date, the latest framework on disaster risk reduction made by the UN in a grand event called Second United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, will expire. It has to give way to a so-called successor framework.
At that point, the UN will have to come up with the successor framework, hopefully containing new material that will detail how to mitigate risks of calamities like Yolanda. The Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction to replace the Hyogo Framework for Action for Disaster Risk Reduction, will be held in Sendai, Japan, several prefectures away from where the predecessor Hyogo Framework was crafted.
If only for the occurrence of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the second and now the third World Conference is being in the same country one more time. However, following what transpired in that country during the earthquake-tsunami and in the Philippines, during and in the aftermath of Yolanda, it can be said that the framework promulgated at the Hyogo Prefecture conference is more or less dead, killed by its obsolescence.
This Hyogo framework died before its successor was born. Thus again, we make this call, prior to or coinciding with the Sendai conference, that the United Nations considers pushing through with our strongly advocated focused disaster and environmental hazards summit.
Why the need to host a focused disasters and environment hazards mapping conference.
The question of whether the various United Nations platforms for disaster risk reduction has done anything to prevent even at least half, or better, more than 50% of the casualties of recent disasters can only be answered in the negative.
The conference tickler of the United Nations for the Third United Nations Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction states:
Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction 2015
Subject to an anticipated decision of the UN General Assembly later in 2013, the Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) is to take place in Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, from 14 to 18 March 2015 (five days inclusive).
Hosted by the Government of Japan in cooperation with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), as secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, the WCDRR will review the implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action and is expected to adopt a successor framework for disaster risk reduction.
The post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction will build on the knowledge and practice developed through the implementation of the International Framework for the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction of 1989, the Yokohama Strategy and Plan of Action of 1994, the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction of 1999 and the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters. Pursuant to General Assembly resolution 66/199, UNISDR will continue to ensure extensive and inclusive multi-stakeholder consultations for a post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction.
When tropical cyclone Ketsana (Ondoy) happened in the Philippines in 2009, it was fervently pushed that a focused conference solely devoted to crisis mapping be held in Manila in 2010. A perfunctory interest was shown by the United Nations, but the Philippines’ national government displayed absolute ignorance of how to treat such a project.
It took a prodding from the Joint United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) – United Nations Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) Environmental Emergencies Unit to their point person in the Philippines for the Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA) – of all agencies in the entire Philippine government to write an inquiry email on what the conference was all about and to describe the role played by the spokesman of Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo – the MARINA head, Ms. Elaine Bautista as point person for UN International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) in the Philippines.
(Photo credits: The Big Picture, Boston.com)
If countries follow the Hyogo Framework for action and how they must sincerely make assessments and forecasts, these scenes might never have happened in the way they are are now portrayed in these images above?
That this kind of reaction is expected of any slow-moving bureaucracy particularly like that of the Philippines where the dynamics are complicated by sudden wealth creation issues, was never a deterrent.
The campaign for hot-spots, crisis mapping has consistently been undertaken without relent by the proponents for a disaster and environment hazards mapping conference for slightly over twenty one years ago as of today.
That this kind of reaction is expected of any slow-moving bureaucracy particularly like that of the Philippines where the dynamics are complicated by sudden wealth creation issues, was never a deterrent.
The campaign for hot-spots, crisis mapping has consistently been undertaken without relent by the proponents for a disaster and environment hazards mapping conference for slightly over twenty one years ago as of today.
However, by looking towards a potential base of support of a combine such as the UN, the insistence on what is comparatively speaking, too simplistic an approach that does not even do justice to staunch defenders of the concept of diplomacy, it appears that many lives in the future are doomed and a huge volume of valuables, crops can now be written off as part of the havoc wrought by calamity.
To make matters worse, despite the pronouncement of the Hyogo Framework for Action towards involving the private sector, most governments just like the Philippines, invite one or two friendly faces and hand out to them their appointment as Private Sector Representative in fancy paper in the spirit of promoting public-private sector cooperation. This does not suffice.
On the part of the private sector that is in practice indifferent to the affairs of state, to expect their representative to fulfill the function of providing the lead for their sector to form a solid front to work with government and their own constituents in contributing to disaster preparedness, not merely in doling out relief goods once a disaster already strikes, is wishing for miracles to happen.
Foreign owned corporations in the Philippines display a more pro-active attitude and take action accordingly, in comparison with their local counterparts. International institutions like the Asian Development Bank do the same. They go out of their way to enroll their key safety and emergency people to get training on disaster preparedness and emergency response. However, these actions are done, more in self-preservation. The foreign establishments are quick to react when crisis strikes and their donations flow towards government agencies whose key actors then take liberty in selling the relief items to retail outlets like malls and stores and spend the financial for the improved comfort of their businesses and homes.
Moreover, in the post-disaster period, private sector supposedly must also be encouraged to share in the lead in rebuilding communities destroyed by calamity. Yet this is many light years away from becoming reality unless our advocacy bears fruit with very short notice.
Notwithstanding these, it is still imperative to look into the primordial importance of focused hazards mapping, beyond its lowly assignation in a long and winding document purporting to be the gospel of worldwide hazards mitigation, prepared as it is by the United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction.
While it is true that the proponents of highly focused hazards mapping for disaster risk mitigation purposes suffered resource short falls, had the UN recognized after Typhoon Ketsana (Ondoy) that the idea of centering upon crisis mapping was viable and necessary, from that period in 2009 to the present, so much could already have been done to mitigate casualties, loss of property, valuables, and livelihood sources as well as homes for a great number of people.
The reason for the uneventful and unintended loggerheads with the UNISDR's sensible campaign for community resiliency is simply that if hard facts and science are factored into the equation, there are unavoidable situations where relocation must come before simply strengthening the resiliency of a community or a single or cluster of vital structures.
However, it is regrettable that just because some quarters are slow to pick up, what happened in Tacloban City, other areas severely hit by super typhoon Yolanda, had to happen.
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