A road is blocked by a landslide in the northern mountainous province of Cao Bang. (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi – The national steering committee for natural disaster prevention and control held a meeting with international partners in Hanoi on December 8, highlighting the role of early warning and early action in natural disaster risk mitigation.

Dao Thi Hong, chief representative of Catholic Relief Services, said that for the last more than 20 years, this organisation has coordinated closely with Vietnamese authorities to support disaster risk mitigation, emergency aid, and settlement of disaster consequences.

In particular, it has worked to help improve the capacity of taking early action and delivering emergency aid. In 2023 - 2024, it has been working with the Disaster and Dyke Management Authority under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and the People’s Committee of Dien Ban town, central Quang Nam province, to carry out a project on enhancing early action to effectively prevent natural disasters in the central region.

Hong expressed her hope that thanks to efforts by all the organisations present at the meeting, early action will become fruitful and help people and communities minimise losses caused by natural disasters. It will also be a practical move to implement the Ha Long Statement on the Strengthening of ASEAN Anticipatory Actions in Disaster Management, adopted at the 11th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Disaster Management on October 12 this year.

Ramla Al Khalidi, Resident Representative of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Vietnam, noted that UNDP and MARD have completed the building and installation of 24 early warning stations in coastal communes with high disaster risks in seven provinces, and they will give assistance in operating the stations in the first quarter of 2024.

UNDP and the Disaster and Dyke Management Authority have also completed a training course for representatives of seven central provinces on the use of drones to evaluate risks and damage and determine evacuation routes/locations, she noted.

Early warning for all must be the key to early action and resilience enhancement, Khalidi continued, adding that UNDP hopes all the partners in disaster risk reduction will join hands to support early warning-related activities.

MARD Deputy Minister Nguyen Hoang Hiep, head of the Disaster Risk Reduction Partnership, said early action is not only a global orientation and part of an ASEAN statement on disaster risk mitigation, but it is also a target for the near future of organisations, agencies, and sectors in the field of natural disaster prevention and control.

He called on each partner, with its resources and strength, to stand by side with people of disaster-hit areas to help them stay as most active as possible in the face of natural disasters.

At the meeting, participants reviewed the results in 2023 and discussed orientations for activities next year.