Asia Pacific Alliance for Disaster Management (A-PAD) is conducting a disaster management training workshop for junior program coordinators from five A-PAD member countries from July 19 to 22 in Bali, Indonesia. The workshop is a part of a one year project supported and funded by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation making it possible for the A-PAD management office to identify and develop the next generation of leaders to fill key roles in disaster management in the Asia Pacific region.

Twelve program coordinators from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines and Sri Lanka who have been working in humanitarian aid organizations are learning about Indonesian disaster management efforts in sessions organized by Mr Faisal Djalal, a founding member of the Indonesian Society of Disaster Management (MPBI). On July 19, the first day of the workshop, definitions and concepts of disaster management, disaster risk reduction and disaster risk management were introduced, and all participants learned about the business sector’s roles in the global disaster management and climate change frameworks such as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Paris Climate Agreement, from a presentation prepared by Dr. Puji Pujiono, Chief of the Disaster Risk Reduction Section at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

On the second day, Dr. H. Iskandar Leman, President of the Consortium of Disaster Education spoke about the Core Humanitarian Standards and Community Based Disaster Risk Management guidelines (CBDRM). During the workshop, participants shared their experiences in CBDRM, expressed their concerns about following guidelines based on different kinds of humanitarian standards, and exchanged views on the challenges of the implementation of CBDRM guidelines.