STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES

   
BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The quality of life and the security of infrastructure (including human services, civil and industrial structures systems, financial infrastructure, information transmission and processing systems) in every nation are increasingly vulnerable to disasters caused by events that have geologic, atmospheric, hydrologic, and technological origins. Investment of intellectual and material resources to prevent and mitigate such disasters is critical to every sector of our global society. At present, economic losses reach an estimated $1 billion/week in the United States and $10 billion/week in the world. Notable recent natural disasters, which receive more attention from the media than technological disasters, include earthquakes in El Salvador, Kocalei (Turkey), Ji Ji, Kobe (Japan), and Northridge (California); Hurricane Floyd and a cyclone in Orissa, India; wildfires in the western United States; mudslides in Venezuela; volcanic eruptions in Italy and Mexico; floods in Mozambique, China, and North Carolina; and droughts in Sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the world. In order to address these issues, 130 disaster mitigation experts representing diverse political, scientific, cultural and non-profit organizations met in Reston, Virginia, USA on August 19-22, 2001 to analyze the causes, processes, ramifications and necessary preventive and mitigative systems for disasters. During and after the Reston workshop, cross-disciplinary teams representing North America, the Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Mediterranean, developed a framework, set of activities and specific recommendations on technical programs that need to be implemented collaboratively by industry, federal agencies and academe to control disasters.  

The Global Alliance for Disaster Reduction (GADR) which is now headquartered at the University of North Carolina Charlotte, under the institutional leadership of the Global Institute for Energy and Environmental Systems (GIEES), has evolved as an epistemic community of more than 1000 experts on disaster reduction and related aspects of sustainable development, representing regional, national and international organizations and institutions, among which are the United Nations, the World Bank, national and regional environmental and disaster mitigation agencies, institutes and relief organizations.

The general objectives of GADR are to:    

1. Mobilize intellectual and material resources to address several issues that will enable businesses and public agencies to mitigate the impacts of natural and technological hazards.

2. Serve as a catalyst for ongoing national and international projects by providing opportunities for expansion of technical and political capacity, building of multinational networks, convening of forums and conferences, and capacity enhancements for centers of excellence to implement programs to reduce the impacts of disasters.  

3. Cause major paradigm shifts in disaster control from disaster impact focus (posterior) to disaster prevention (anterior) in all disciplines, national and regional infrastructure plans, and educational programs.

GADR adds to the gains of previous global activities and builds upon existing activities. Examples of activities that have provided opportunities for the evolution of GADR as a networking/liaison organization are the ProVention program of the World Bank, the United Nation’s International Disaster Reduction Strategy (UN-ISDR), the Public-Private Partnership (PPP-2000), the Project Impact of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency and the United Nation’s International Decade for Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) which ended in 2000.