COMPREND Concept Paper
Global Workshop on Community-Based Forecasting and Early Warning
Preparedness for Natural Disasters
Background
The
world is now experiencing an unprecedented increase in the magnitude and frequency
of natural disasters of all types. Drastic changes in climate and sea level
rise are causing the extinction of species, as well as catastrophic weather
events. This trend in nature challenges us in the timely achievement of the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs). Recognizing that the fullest expression of the MDGs is at the local
level, communities that can see ahead and prepare for devastating disasters
strengthen their resilience and security by reducing the impact of these
disasters.
Massive relief and response to
disasters such as the great earthquake and tsunami at the end of 2004, and the
October 2005 earthquake in northern
Such is the vision and spirit of COMPREND, a UNDP
supported global program that facilitates Community Monitoring and Preparedness for
Natural Disasters (see Annex 2). The core
of COMPREND is grounded in a grassroots best practice, where a rural community
of half a million totally survived a magnitude 7.8 earthquake, which destroyed
180,000 buildings in the community itself. While this community had no loss of
life directly from the destruction of the quake, over 240,000 people perished
from the event in the regions surrounding the community.[1]
COMPREND builds upon the lessons of this community’s early warning
experience, as well as additional good practices in the mitigation of weather disasters,
tsunamis and volcanic events. The program shares innovative technologies, from
both the physical and social sciences, involving community volunteers of
different ages and from all walks of life.
As a results-oriented program, COMPREND joins science and social action at the community level, to strengthen community resilience and capacity to mitigate the effects of natural disasters.
This
present concept paper is to facilitate the timely realization of (1) above. The
breakthroughs made by the community-based monitoring projects in the
The Community Shequ is a global
community workshop and dialogue space. The workshop will highlight local level
best practices across the spectrum of natural disasters, showcasing the
resource, knowledge and energy of local communities as a powerful modality in
disaster mitigation. This meeting will cover seven days and focus on innovative
strategies that grassroots communities have developed to see ahead and
effectively prepare for natural disasters.
The Community Shequ will
facilitate community-driven dialogue among local community leaders from
different disaster-prone regions of the world, representatives from NGOs,
various levels of government and international organizations, members of the
scientific and business communities, as well as the media. The workshop will
examine in depth selected best practices in community-based disaster
forecasting and early warning preparedness. The discussions will target on key themes of direct relevance to community
monitoring of the environment, including information sharing, early warning
policies and disaster education. In promoting and supporting
community voices, the Community Shequ will explore key cross-cutting issues,
including:
·
Mutual expectations between communities, scientists,
business leaders and government officials, regarding their mandated role in
disaster mitigation, and how each group experiences these expectations;
·
Ways in which local communities can substantively
contribute to early warning policies at the community and national levels,
thereby improving economic and human security;
·
Integration of corporate business partners in
disaster mitigation
·
Commonalities shared by and differences between the
various types of natural disasters, especially with regard to the environmental
signals associated with each type of disaster;
·
Networking/transmission of sensitive disaster-related
information that would make a difference at the grass roots level, and
·
Ways to engage, through media and disaster education
campaigns via inter- and intra-community dialogue, different sectors of society
(including businesses, NGOs, women, the disabled and schoolchildren) in raising
public awareness on environmental changes related to natural hazards.
The Community Shequ will provide local communities with the opportunity
to take on some effective ways of seeing ahead and thereby preparing adequately
for natural disasters. This global workshop will also have communities begin
exploring the question: What would partnership with government, businesses,
NGOS and scientists look like if communities directed the planning and design
process to allocate disaster mitigation resources?
The
Community Shequ is a community-directed workshop, and therefore must begin,
from the first day of its conception, to include local community
organizations/leaders in the workshop planning, program design, meeting
facilitation, and agenda setting. The workshop organizers intend to conduct
outreach to community groups in disaster-prone regions, groups that will
together create a relevant and results/action-oriented Community Shequ.
The
Community Shequ will bring together a number of successful cases in
community-based monitoring and preparedness for natural disasters. The workshop
program will also include site visits to locations where community
members are actively monitoring their environment, able to assess the
developing hazards and take actions to reduce the impact of a potential
disaster.
The participants
will share their best practices in disaster forecasting and early warning
preparedness, and distinguish what aspects of these practices would be of
interest to implement in their own communities. They will then go into action
creating the structures that will have them realize these aspects, in a
timeline that the communities themselves assess and define.
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Intended
Outcome: Local
communities seeing ahead and preparing effectively for natural hazards,
taking on ownership as dynamic players / actors in creating / developing
grassroots security and safety for natural hazards. |
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Title: Global Workshop on Community-Based Forecasting and
Early Warning Preparedness for Natural Disasters |
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Intended Outcome |
Output Targets
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Indicative Activities
|
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1. Local communities present and speak effectively on
their good practices in forecasting for impending natural hazards. |
1.1. Selected communities with good practices in disaster forecasting
and early warning preparedness; brief documentation on each of these good
practices, showing who was
involved and why were these practices successful. |
1.1.1. Pre-planning outreach initiative, including use
of COMPREND website and networks of partnering grassroots community groups,
to locate / select communities with good practices in disaster forecasting
and early warning preparedness. 1.1.2.
Facilitation in preparing the documentation for each selected good
practice community, as input for workshop proceedings. |
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2.1. Proceedings of the Community Shequ, to include workshop input and
context / content of the workshop discussions. |
2.1.1. Communities speak directly to disaster professionals and
to policy makers. 2.1.2. Policy makers, disaster professionals / scientists and the
public express the challenges they have vis-à-vis each other in the matter of
sharing disaster-related information. Communities
get to express their frustrations and difficulties in being at the receiving
end of professional / scientific pronouncements and decisions that directly
impact their safety and security. |
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3. Community participants become aware of the
natural environment and its subtle shifts, and take on monitoring the
environment and networking this information for risk reduction; they develop
the capacity to defuse rumours about predicted natural disasters. |
3.1. Targeted brochures and pamphlets for wide distribution through
journals, media and the Internet, etc., regarding the numerous ways to reduce
the impact of natural disasters using basic knowledge of environmental
changes and early-warning contingency planning at the family level. |
3.1.1. Scientists share their observations of the environment in
ways that are comprehensible to policy makers and to grassroots communities,
as well as seek partnership with these communities in gathering information
on changes in the environment. |
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4. Local communities develop an integrated and systematic
approach to forecasting and early warning preparedness, for natural hazards
including tectonic and destructive weather events. |
4.1. Audio-visual and written documentation of community-based
socio-technical approaches to seeing ahead for destructive natural disasters,
for purposes of community-based disaster education campaigns. |
4.1.1. Sharing of innovative strategies that local communities
have created in seeing ahead and taking preparedness action to mitigate the
impact of the forecasted hazard. 4.1.2. Discussion of the various types of
natural disasters, what their commonalities and differences are, and the environmental
signals preceding such disasters; early warning actions people can take to
reduce the impact of such events. |
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5. Communities as the generators of substantive action in disaster policy
at the community and national levels, creating
structures where by their needs are addressed at the legislative and policy
levels. Communities
are empowered and pro-active in seeking out new funding sources for their
self-designed community action plans. |
5.1. Community Voices Declaration: a communities-authored document and
declaration capturing their perspectives, conclusions and policy
recommendations to be presented to local / national / international policy
bodies; includes articulation of communities as dynamic actors in risk
reduction, in contrast to the typical view of grassroots communities as
managed entities in national risk reduction plans. 5.2. Participants leave the workshop with concrete plans of actions in a timeline, and an accountability
framework that will keep participants responsible for forwarding their
actions. |
5.1.1. Participants work together to draft a declaration that expresses
what they have gained from the Community Shequ. 5.2.1. Participants design
the next steps and actions, including voluntary (in-kind) measures to be
taken at the local level, to fulfil the possibilities they create for their
own communities vis-à-vis disaster forecasting and early-warning
preparedness. 5.2.2. Local communities
enter into dialogue with development professionals, business leaders,
government officials, and donors on how these groups can partner to support
locally driven community development efforts related to disaster reduction. |
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6.1. Final proceedings of the Community Shequ, including workshop input, output,
context / content of the workshop discussions and comments / evaluation of
the Community Shequ. |
6.1.1. Workshop participants provide their feedback and evaluation of
the Community Shequ. |
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7.
Revitalized / activated local community monitoring networks, with forecasting
and early warning preparedness results that are documented and presented to
the global community by on-line virtual forums and/or international meetings. |
7.1. Communities produce forecasting and early warning preparedness results
that are showcased on-line to fellow participants and donors. |
7.1.1. Workshop
organizers maintain regular communications with workshop participants to
facilitate sharing of their on-going progresses globally. |
United Nations Development Programme: Community Monitoring & Preparedness
for Natural Disasters
UNDP/COMPREND
The recent
rise in the severity and frequency of natural disasters is of serious concern
to the global community. These disasters significantly impact global
development. Annual economic losses by these disasters have increased worldwide
from US$75.5 billion in the 1960s to US$659.9 billion in the 1990s. Today 85%
of the people exposed to natural hazards and disasters including earthquakes,
tropical cyclones, floods and droughts live in developing countries.
To reduce
loss of life and economic impact, the United Nations strives to raise global
awareness on natural disasters and on the possible approaches communities can
take to reduce the impact of such disasters.
Noting the emergence of many techniques and methodologies for early
warning and community preparation for disasters, as well as the rapid advances
in information-sharing technology, the United Nations seeks to facilitate
timely exchange of disaster-related information, data and experiences to all
interested Member States.
To
this end, the UNDP is launching an initiative on Community Monitoring &
Preparedness for Natural Disasters, COMPREND. Established in September
2004, this global initiative promotes activities that catalyze environmental
monitoring and preparedness efforts at the local community level for
earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and severe weather disasters. Founded on
south-south cooperation, i.e., collaboration between developing countries, COMPREND
is a global program that encourages the sharing of community disaster
experiences and advances in forecasting technologies. It recognizes that early
warning for natural disasters at the community level depends upon parallel
activities that strengthen public awareness of the environment and its changes,
local forecasting capabilities and social organization to gather and
disseminate relevant information effectively.
COMPREND is designed at the global
level to share interregional knowledge through face–to–face meetings,
international conferences/demonstrations, exchange visits, workshops,
publications and a website. It facilitates collaborative research using
advances in software and data from established global monitoring networks. At the national and local levels, COMPREND projects include
monitoring changes in the natural environment, raising public awareness through
education and action-learning, and strengthening local information and
communication networks to link communities with scientists and public
administrators in disaster reduction. Protocols that are specific to each
locality, country and type of disaster will be integrated to share information,
vulnerability, risk and preparedness strategies.
Below
are examples of the types of projects and outcomes that COMPREND facilitates.
These documented results are the accomplishments of the United Nations Global
Programme for the Integration of Public Administration and the Science of
Disasters, UNGP-IPASD (www.global-watch.org/ungp),
which preceded COMPREND and completed in 2003.
In
the
CSCAN-Philippines, as a
community-based system, achieved remarkable results in seeing ahead for six
medium-sized earthquakes that occurred between January 2002 and April 2003.
Results are documented in two UNDP
articles [Article 1] [Article 2].
In
The community-based earthquake monitoring networks
in
INTERNATIONAL
WORKSHOP ON NATURAL DISASTER
MANAGEMENT: GETTING TOGETHER, SHARING EXPERIENCE,
DEVELOPING COOPERATION FOR DISASTER PREPAREDNESS AND MANAGEMENT; Linking
Disaster Rehabilitation with Sustainable Human Development (UNDP & UNOCHA
sponsored workshop: 10 – 12 June, 1999, Beijing, China)
COMPREND is bold in its focus on
producing timely results at the country and local levels. Multi-disciplinary
and multi-sectoral in scope, this global program utilizes innovations in the
social and physical sciences to engage local communities in disaster awareness
and action. Support by partners from the public-private sectors and all walks
of life are welcomed.
For further information on
COMPREND, which is established in the Capacity Development Group (CDG) of the
Bureau for Development Policy (BDP), United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) -
Jean
J. Chu, Senior Consultant, UNDP/COMPREND
Email: jeanjchu@gmail.com
Mobile
numbers: +1-718-791-9763
(when in the
+86-136-9306-7556
(when in
+63-919-836-5037
(when in the
or Arleen
Verendia
Email: arleen.verendia@undp.org;
Tel: +1-212-906-5618
Fax: +1-212-906-5896
Postal Address: FF-631-A,
[1] “Integrating public administration, science and
community action: a case of early-warning success in
[2] Shequ is the Chinese word for “community”, and is
pronounced Sir-chew.