The Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) is a non-profit organization supporting the advancement of safer communities and sustainable development, through implementing programs and projects that reduce the impact of disasters upon countries and communities in Asia and the Pacific, by:
> Developing and enhancing sustainable institutional disaster risk management capacities, frameworks and mechanisms, and supporting the development and implementation of government policies;
> Facilitating the dissemination and exchange of disaster risk management expertise, experience and information; and
> Raising awareness and enhancing disaster risk management knowledge and skills.
Established in 1986, The Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) works in a number of countries in the Asia region including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Saudi-Arabia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam. With headquarters located in Bangkok, Thailand, ADPC has country offices in Bangladesh, Lao PDR and Myanmar. ADPC's well-established networks with government line agencies and strong partnerships with regional organizations and development agencies provide the foundation for its work.
ADPC deploys disaster risk management (DRM) information and systems to reduce local, national and regional risk across Asia-Pacific. Its portfolio focuses on DRM capacity building, improving DRM for cities and climate change, mainstreaming DRM into national and local development, improving DRM systems and undertaking disaster risk assessments. To achieve its aims in disaster risk reduction, ADPC works closely with local, national and regional governments, governmental and non-governmental organizations, donors and development partners.
Approach
ADPC's strength lies in its willingness to be flexible and innovative in the ways that it delivers its technical assistance and support in disaster risk reduction, based on the needs expressed by the countries it serves. ADPC's 2020 Strategy comprehensively approaches disaster risk reduction through enhancing capacity of countries by utilizing science-based information; strengthening government systems for effective risk management at all levels; and by improving grounded application of risk reduction measures in development.
Science - ADPC is using scientific knowledge to identify, quantify and understand risk. Examples of the scientific work include, but are not limited to, climate downscaling to local scales for emergency planning; using remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) to identify risks; and economic modeling for risk financing.
System - Once the risk is understood, ADPC aims to institutionalize or strengthen systems to address the risk. For example, ADPC supports national-level frameworks on disaster risk reduction in several countries; strengthens the capacity of sub-national disaster management officials by supporting the disaster risk reduction process and making sure procedures are in place; and most importantly, ADPC ensures that the policies and guidelines that the national frameworks include are implemented. ADPC, furthermore trying to 'link-up' the bottom-up approach with the sub-national level.
Applications - The final step to ADPC's work is to apply the scientific knowledge once the systems are in place. This includes, for example, integrating disaster risk reduction into development planning processes. ADPC's work in urban management, for instance, reaches out to other sectors to make sure that knowledge on disaster risk reduction is put into place. In an urban context, this may include working with city-level planners on contingency planning.
