During 22-29 March 2018, DPPC members visited Thailand and Vietnam to promote its DRM program and discuss about the possible future collaborative activities with key DRR stakeholders in the Asia-Pacific Region. The mission was headed by Dr. Khamarrul Azahari Razak, MDRM Program Coordinator, accompanied by Dato’ Zakaria Mohamad, DPPC fellow and Science & Technology Advisory Board member of the National Disaster Management Agency (NaDMA) and Dr. Shohei Matsuura, JICA Expert to MJIIT.
At the United Nations Secretariat for International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), Asia Pacific Regional Asia Pacific Office, DPPC discussed with Mr. Animesh Kumar, Deputy Head of Office and Mr. Timothy Wilcox, Programme Management Officer on future roles of science, technology and academic group for training and providing expertise to facilitate the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction: SFDRR (2015-2030). The team also expressed support to UNISDR in working with the National Disaster Management Agency (NaDMA) Malaysia and other partners to properly implement the Sendai Monitor as well as launching of ARISE Malaysia to strengthen resilience of the private sector.
On the same day, DPPC members visited Chulalongkorn University and received by Assistant Professor Dr. Chatpan Chintanapakdee (Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering), Dr. Natt Leelawat (Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering), and Dr. Puntita Tanwattana (Environmental Research Institute). Chulalongkorn University recently launched its new 2-year postgraduate program, “Master of Science on Risk and Disaster Management (RDM)” in which will offer a series of DRM-related courses by various departments (from February 2018). The multidisciplinary approach to DRM similar with DPPC showed opportunities of both sides to collaborate in the future. (RDM program: http://www.rdm.grad.chula.ac.th/)
On 26 March, DPPC members visited the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) and greeted by Professor Pennung Warnitchai, Head of Department of Construction and Infrastructure Engineering, School of Engineering and Technology, Dr. Indrajit Pal, Assistant Professor and Chair of Disaster Preparedness, Mitigation and Management (DPMM), Dr. Mokbul Morshed Ahmad, Associate Professor, Regional and Rural Development Planning, School of Environment, Resources and Development (SERD), Dr. Hiroyuki Miyazaki, Assistant Professor, Remote Sensing and GIS, School of Engineering and Technology (SET) and Ms. Vineeta Thapa, Senior Program Officer DPMM. DPMM also takes the interdisciplinary approaches to disaster management and targets both full time and professional training programs with backgrounds ranging from civil engineering to medicine. Discussions focused on future joint academic and research activities and international conference in the Asia Pacific region. (DPMM program: http://dpmm.ait.ac.th/wp/)
On the same day, DPPC members visited the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) and received by Mr. Aslam Perwaiz, Deputy Executive Director. ADPC with its long-standing reputation as the “one stop center” for providing professional training and project implementation in the AP region can offer many hints to DPPC to become one of the regional training and research hub in ASEAN. Discussion ranged from possibilities of student internships at ADPC and credit transfer of training programs. While ADPC expressed interest in building closer partnership with science and technology stakeholders, both sides promised to follow up on detailed collaboration, such as organizing a regional conference in the near future. (ADPC website: http://www.adpc.net/igo/?)
