On October 2 ? 4, 2013, Faisal Djalal, Chairperson of Asia Pacific Alliance for Disaster Management (APADM), attended the 4^th Asia Pacific Housing Forum hosted by the international NGO Habitat for Humanity. The event took place in Manila, Philippines with the theme “Housing as Foundation for Breaking Poverty Cycle.”

The forum provided an opportunity for governments, businesses and NGOs to share their experiences, good practices as well as prospective innovative solutions to poverty housing. The inter-related issues of disaster resilience and management, and access to sustainable water and energy were discussed in the context of how these issues relate to the challenge of providing homes to the Asian region’s millions of homeless people. In the discussion track session of Building Resilience to Disaster and Climate Change, Mr. Djalal represented APADM and gave a presentation entitled “Networking and Involvement of the Private Sector in Disaster Management.”

The main purpose of the presentation was to introduce APADM as an example of regional networking in strengthening the private sector’s involvement in disaster response, reconstruction and rehabilitation as well as within the framework for disaster preparedness and recovery. Concrete examples of APADM members’ disaster response activities in partnership with the private sector were also introduced during the presentation.

The event brought together more than 1,400 stakeholders including policy-makers, urban planners, architects, academics, housing sector developers, NGOs, donor agencies, international organizations, researchers, and public sector players from 52 Asia Pacific countries.