Kobe Conference Calls for New Approach to Disasters

Participants in the World Conference on Disaster Reduction, held Jan. 18-22 in Kobe, Japan, called on governments and societies to devote greater attention and to make major changes in the way they approach the issue.

The five-day conference was the largest-ever international onal meeting on natural disasters and took place in the aftermath of one of the largest disasters in history: the Dec. 26 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. Participants said the tsunami tragedy proved that natural disasters cannot be treated as a separate area of concern in development efforts. The world needs better disaster risk management, but even more important is incorporating measures for disaster reduction into strategies for sustainable development.

Members of the Pan American Health Organization's program on disasters and humanitarian assistance organized two conference sessions on disaster reduction in hospitals and other critical facilities.

In recorded remarks, PAHO Director Mirta Roses told conference participants: "During the 2004 hurricane season, in Grenada and Haiti, hospitals and health facilities that the community once viewed as points of reference and trust were paralyzed or destroyed at the same time that they were most needed, and they became themselves in need of urgent assistance." She urged that all hospitals be made disaster-safe by 2015.

PAHO disaster chief Jean-Luc Poncelet also emphasized the importance of fortifying schools, noting that thousands of school children were among the victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami, and thousands more have perished in classrooms during floods, earthquakes and hurricanes.

The conference produced a framework of action for 2005–2015 that calls for integrating disaster risk reduction into health sector planning, ensuring that new hospitals are built to be disaster-safe, and upgrading existing health facilities to make them more disaster-resistant.