Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency of Turkey (AFAD) established in 2009 to take necessary measures for an effective emergency management and civil protection issues Turkish nationwide. The presidency conducts; pre-incident works such as preparedness, mitigation and risk management, during incident works such as response, post incident works such as recovery and reconstruction. AFAD is affiliated to the Turkish Prime Ministry.

Turkey is in the ninth place in the world with regard to human losses in earthquakes, and on the fifth place in terms of the total number of people affected. Turkey sees an average of one earthquake with a magnitude of 5 to 6 every year. On average, around 1000 people lose their lives and 9000 residences suffer damages in disasters every year.

As a result of the lessons learned from management and coordination problems in particular from the earthquake of 1999 and various subsequent disasters, the former post-disaster central-to-local crisis management mentality was replaced with pre-disaster mitigation activities and local-to-central risk management. In this framework, with the founding law passed in 2009, AFAD was established at the central level, with Disaster and Emergency Directorates attached to Governorates under Special Provincial Administrations established at the local level.

Starting to work on its strategic plan following its founding, AFAD has extensively revised the draft strategy document in consideration of changes in higher management levels and legislation, as well as experiences from the Van Earthquake and studies on social disorders taking place in various countries in the recent years.

 

Goals and objectives

• Being a constantly developing and learning organization
• Establishing a risk –centred integrated disaster  management system
• Generalizing disaster management standards
• Launching out an educational campaign for disaster preparedness
• Being a leading organization in the international area.

 

Areas of activity, legal obligation

The main founding purpose of AFAD is to ensure the most effective execution of the integrated disaster management system, before, during and after disasters and emergencies, and in this sense to ensure high-level national and international coordination in this context. In this framework, in order to reduce losses from disasters, ensure disaster preparedness, disaster response and fast recovery works after disaster, AFAD:

• Ensures cooperation between all relevant national and international agencies and organizations for effected planning, management, support and coordination of necessary activities in line with specified standards.
• Promotes disaster awareness and culture in the public by carrying out research, development and education activities, and
• Ensures that protective and preventive measures are taken within the framework of the principle of social state

 

AFAD is an organization promoting rational utilization of resources in this multi-national and multi-actor area and carrying out these activities on a multi-disciplinary basis. The integrated disaster management system adopted as the pillar of risk management by AFAD consists of four areas:

• Mitigation
• Preparedness
• Response
• Recovery