Natural disasters: Lanka, UN to enhance cooperation

Sri Lanka and the United Nations (UN) have reached an agreement to share important geographic data which would help humanitarian agencies during a disaster situation in the country, a UN official told Xinhua on Friday.Head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in Sri Lanka, Brendan McDonald said that the agreement would mean that information like exact boundaries dividing the districts in the country will be made available to humanitarian agencies through the UN.

He said previously, such information was hard to access and most often had to be purchased from the government by any humanitarian organisation, but now the information will be made available through UNOCHA free.

"Earlier, some humanitarian agencies had their own geographic information and that, at times, differs from the actual information available with the government.

"So, at a time of, say, a natural disaster such as a flood, it becomes difficult for humanitarian agencies to identify the exact locations to dispatch assistance to the affected people," McDonald said.