Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on May 30 delivered a speech to
open the second Ministerial Meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP
2) on the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response
(AADMER) in Hanoi.
The event, attended by ASEAN
Secretary General Le Luong Minh and ministers from the association’s ten
member countries, aims to evaluate the results of the first phase of
the AADMER and outline directions for its second phase (2013-2015).
PM Dung affirmed that at the regional level, disaster management has
always been one of the prioritised issues of ASEAN and in the bloc’s
cooperation with its partners.
AADMER has laid an
important legal foundation to promote cooperation in preventing and
dealing with disasters in the region, said the PM.
He expressed his delight that the association has recorded commendable
progresses in implementing the first phase of the agreement in the
2010-2012 period.
Various important activities have
been carried out in all four strategic components of Risk Assessment,
Early Warning and Monitoring, Prevention and Mitigation, Preparedness
and Response, and Recovery, he said.
PM Dung pointed
out that disaster management cooperation between ASEAN and its partners
has seen positive results, with many specific projects underway with
the support of partners, including Japan, Australia, New Zealand,
the US and the EU.
He suggested that the
conference should focus on key issues, especially the enhancement of
coordination between ASEAN’s disaster management agencies and other
relevant channels such as the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM)
and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), adding that resuming the ASEAN
Ministerial Meeting on Disaster Management is a practical step forward.
Recommending that the bloc should be more proactive
in mobilising resources to effectively implement specific projects, the
PM said it is crucial to concretise ASEAN’s agreements and commitments
on cooperation in disaster management at a regional level into a
national development plan for each member state, with priorities in the
setting up of an early warning system and raising public awareness, the
completion of legal documents and upgrading disaster prevention and
relief efforts.
With the strong political
commitments of the member countries and the joint efforts of the entire
region, PM Dung said he believes ASEAN will reach its goal of building a
Community with disaster-resilient nations and safer communities.
He noted that during the last ten years, the number of deaths and
cases of missing people due to disasters in Vietnam has escalated to
300. Disasters have also cost Vietnam 1.5 percent of its GDP.
Vietnam has designed natural disaster prevention
and relief national strategies for up to 2020, as well as steps against
climate change, while promulgating many important legal documents in
the field, such as the Laws on Water Resource and Natural Disaster
Prevention and Fighting, the PM said.
Besides,
Vietnam has also actively participated in regional and international
forums on natural disaster management, while implementing the Hyogo
Framework for Action on limiting risks caused by disasters.
At the conference, Vietnamese Minister of Agriculture and Rural
Development Cao Duc Phat emphasised that due to the adverse effects of
climate change, increasingly unpredictable natural disasters have
impacted on the lives of people, especially those in rural areas, and
the fulfillment of the United Nations’ millennium development goals.
This requires all ASEAN member countries to work closely together in responding to natural disasters, added Minister Phat.
In recent years, natural disasters have been more diverse,
unpredictable and increasingly large, especially sea-level rises,
salinisation, earthquakes and tsunamis. Many countries that seldom had
natural disasters in the past now have to burden their devastating
consequences.
The Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) comprises ten members, including Singapore, Malaysia,
Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and
Vietnam.-VNA