On 21 April 2021, the NADMA-JICA joint webinar on “Strengthening Capacity for Building Local Resilience” was implemented as a part of JICA’s technical cooperation project, “Enhancement of the Disaster Risk Management Capacity of the National Disaster Management Agency (NADMA)” that aims to build the coordinating capacity of NaDMA to implement and achieve the goals of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 and national DRR plans. The webinar was hosted and moderated by MJIIT.
Specifically, the technical cooperation project above aims to achieve the following outputs:
- Enhancement of NADMA’s DRM administrative capacities, including planning, budgeting and coordination
- Enhancement of knowledge to assess and understand multi-hazard and disaster risks, improve end-to-end early warning system (EWS), communication and information management in disasters are enhanced
- Strengthen understanding to effectively plan recovery and rehabilitation with “build back better” concepts
- Acquirement of tools and skills to support implementation of community based disaster risk management (CBDRM)
Because physical training could not be implemented at this time due to travel restrictions from the world-wide COVID-19 pandemic, NADMA and JICA decided to conduct this online webinar, that focuses on (a) methodologies for strengthening local government DRR strategies, (b) policies of JICA and NADMA to support local level DRR, (c) Malaysian case study to enhance local level DRR and to (d) plan the contents for the upcoming (physical) training program.
NADMA had invited DRR-related agencies and departments from federal and local governments who are expected to join the training program. Participants from the MJIIT will also join as technical advisors.
Invited speaker from Penang State had introduced the newly adopted development policy, the Penang Green Agenda 2023, which includes a DRR component as a local case study. Survey team of the NADMA-JICA Joint Survey on Local DRR Capacity had also given a briefing on the ongoing study that is expected to identify key issues of the local government for strengthening local DRR.
JICA had also invited the Asian Disaster Reduction Center (ADRC) from Kobe, Japan to conduct a quick overview on “8 Steps: Practical Methods for Developing Local DRR Strategies/Plans,” a tool used by JICA and implemented in other countries like Vietnam, Indonesia and India.
The webinar was joined by 157 participants from various federal and local government agencies and departments, community-based organizations, researchers and post-graduate students.
The recording of the webinar can be seen on DPPC’s Facebook page
