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| Sunday, 23 January 2005 |
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Post-tsunami world pledges to invest in disaster preparations Saturday,(AFP) More than 150 nations pledged Saturday to build early warning systems and make disaster preparation a budget priority in the wake of the Asian tsunamis, but avoid imposing concrete goals after five days of heated talks. UN relief chief Jan Egeland said that a "faithful interpretation" of promises made during the five-day conference in Kobe, Japan "would mean the saving of hundreds of thousands of lives and millions of livelihoods." "The world may not be a safer place next week but it should be in a year from now and it should certainly be at the end of the decade that we are now embarking on," Egeland said. Talks wrapped up past midnight to finalize a declaration and action framework, with some sides pushing for specific deadlines on when early warning systems must be in place and buildings must be built safer, diplomats said. Egeland acknowledged that the adopted documents were largely symbolic, but said the world would be made safer by the in-depth discussions here of 4,500 disaster management experts and officials. "The decisions of this conference are not legally binding documents but carry a strong moral commitment by states and organizations to guide our policies and actions in the coming 10 years," Egeland said. He said a task force would come up with "measurable indicators" in the coming months to monitor progress. The conference, timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary of a major earthquake in Kobe, took on a new dimension after the shock of the Asian tsunami disaster which killed some 220,000 people. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies had pushed for a more compelling agreement, saying the conference had an opportunity to demand political action in the wake of the tsunamis. Tadateru Konoe of the Japanese Red Cross who led the federation's delegation in Kobe said Saturday that the "encouraging statements made by governments" still had to be turned into "concrete action." Salvano Briceno, head of the UN disaster reduction group running the conference, said the general tone of the final documents was inevitable with so many views after the tsunami disaster. "When there are so many differences, so many views among countries, it is a slow process. It has to be and the outcome has to be a very general document," Briceno told AFP. The adopted resolution, named for Hyogo Prefecture which includes Kobe, said: "It is vital to give high priority to disaster risk reduction in national policy, consistent with (governments') capacities and resources available to them." "We believe it is critically important that the Hyogo Framework for Action be translated into concrete action at all levels," the declaration said. The delegates reached a consensus on Thursday to put the United Nations in charge of building a tsunami alert system for the Indian Ocean, amid competing offers by donor and regional nations to share their technology. The alert system for the Indian Ocean was pledged be up and running in 12 to 18 months. The framework for action called for the development of alert systems across the world that are "people-centered, in particular systems whose warnings are timely and understandable to those at risk." It called on governments to "prepare and publish national baseline assessments of the status of disaster risk reduction, according to the capabilities, needs and policies of each state." Egeland began the conference on Tuesday with an appeal for 10 percent of all humanitarian aid over the next decade to go toward reducing risks. One controversy during the negotiations was climate change, with the United States, which has rejected the Kyoto protocol, leading objections to repeated references to global warming as a concern in disaster reduction. Briceno said the push on global warming came largely from small island nations but it was agreed to minimize mentions of climate change. The final document, however, still mentions the issue, with governments called upon to consider "adaptation to climate change" in disaster policy. |
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