Disaster management

Some of my colleagues in the Vietnam office of the World Bank, working with Sai Gon Tiep Thi newspapers, recently organized a photo contest and exhibition on the topic of natural disasters. I thought I’d share some of the finalist entries, which are remarkable in their composition and relevance. It’s important to note that these pictures are not related to the disasters that have hit several East Asian and Pacific countries in recent weeks. Nevertheless, I highly recommend taking a few minutes to click through the pictures below, which focus on the human toll of natural disasters in Vietnam. Check back in a couple days for more photos from the same contest.

Ateneo de Manila University Disaster Response Group, photo courtesy of L.A. Lomarda under a Creative Commons license.

Some of the big-name, international agencies and NGOs are already mobilizing to assist the victims of typhoon Ketsan (Ondoy) in the Philippines, and donation sites have been set up by the local Red Cross, UNICEF, and the World Food Programme.

I asked a few of my colleagues in the Manila office to list some local aid organizations, and I share their suggestions here with you. Churches in the Philippines are very active at a grass-roots level, so their presence in this short list should come as no surprise:

The Xe Bang Fai river in Laos started to break its banks over the last two weeks in some areas, causing testing to stop for the Nam Theun 2 project.

The rainy season in Laos is well advanced now, and the Province of Khammouane, where most of the Nam Theun 2 Hydroelectric Project (NT2) is located, has been hard hit over the last two weeks. Just over a week ago there was 225mm of rain over central Khammouane in one night, leading to floods in several places around the province – including the provincial capital of Thakek. Apparently there were places in Thakek up to a meter deep in water for a while: a combination of heavy rain and blocked drains, according to a local official. Those of us who were in Lao’s capital Vientiane during last year’s floods will vividly remember this.

As a result of this heavy rain, the Xe Bang Fai River, which drains a significant part of Khammouane, started to break its banks over the last week in some areas. The Xe Bang Fai is very significant to the NT2 as it is the river that will receive the water discharged from the hydropower facility when it is operating. The incremental impacts of NT2 water on the regular flood cycle of the Xe Bang Fai river has always been a concern for the project, and was studied extensively.

I spent last week at the 2009 UNISDR Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Geneva. The Global Platform, attended this year by some 1,800 participants from more than 300 Governments and Organizations, is the premier gathering for the worldwide Disaster Risk Reduction community, including political leaders and their policy advisors, UN agencies, international organizations, and scientific/academic institutions. The first event was held in 2007.

The World Bank’s East Asia and Pacific region had a strong presence at the Platform with representation (pdf) from all of its countries and regional partners like ASEAN and SOPAC. The Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) had its semi-annual Consultative Group meeting on the sidelines of the Platform on June 15. This was an important meeting for us since the Country Programming Profiles that we had prepared for resources from GFDRR for 2009-11 were up for consideration. The profiles were prepared by our country focal points in strong partnership with government authorities with the aim of leveraging scarce GFDRR resources into a coherent and comprehensive disaster risk management program. Donors endorsed the proposed program and were very appreciative of the process followed.