China's experience to help Asia manage disasters

BEIJING - A two-day international forum on community-based disaster management has been held in Southeast China's Zhejiang province, focusing on how developing countries can increase resilience to disasters.

Eighty-three representatives from China and abroad took part in the event on Tuesday and Wednesday, which was supported by the UK-China Global Development Partnership.

"Communities' resilience to disasters is the base of a country's disaster management system," said Lai Hongzhou, head of the disaster reduction division of China's Ministry of Civil Affairs.

China has built 4,116 pilot communities, and 92 percent of them are equipped with disaster information officers, according to Lai.

Representatives are due to visit pilot communities in Taizhou City in Zhejiang on Wednesday afternoon.

"We are looking forward to real, practical sharing of policy approaches, implementation arrangements and technological solutions to community-based disaster management in China," said Shantanu Mitra, senior economic adviser of the UK's Department for International Development (DFID).

Nepur Ahmed, director of the disaster management department at Bangladesh's Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief, said that China has developed considerable experience in this area and its knowledge has great relevance to other developing countries in Asia like Bangladesh.

The project, Sharing and Learning on Community-Based Disaster Management in Asia, is jointly supported by DFID and the Chinese government. Bangladesh and Nepal are initial partner countries and more are set to join.

According to Yang Fang, project manager from United Nations Development Programme, community-level visits and peer learning, joint research as well as information-sharing platforms are scheduled.