2012/EPWG/SDMOF/008rev3
6th APEC Senior Disaster Management Officials Forum
Vladivostok, Russian Federation, 9-10 October 2012
OUTCOMES
1. We, APEC Ministers and Senior Disaster Management Officials, met in Vladivostok, Russia on
October 9-10, 2012 under the chairmanship of Mr. Vladimir Puchkov, Minister of the Russian
Federation for Civil Defence, Emergencies and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters.
In total fifteen APEC member economies, including Canada, Chile, China, Indonesia, Japan,
Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, USA,
Viet Nam and the representatives of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and UN Office for
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs participated in the Forum.
2. We discussed the current challenges related to natural and man-made disasters that threaten
human security and sustainable economic development of the APEC member economies. We
emphasized that cooperation among APEC economies in disaster management plays crucial role
in ensuring human security and secure economic growth.
3. We welcomed the participation in the meeting of the representatives of United Nations Office for
Disaster Risk Reduction and United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN
OCHA) and appreciated their efforts in ensuring the resiliency of the Asia-Pacific region to
disasters.
4. We acknowledged that the increasing intensity and scales of disasters occurred in Asia-Pacific
region within the last decade require the implementation of more effective mechanisms and
solutions for emergency management. We reaffirmed our commitment to strengthen efforts in
increasing disaster management capacities of participating economies and region as a whole,
and adopting meaningful measures aimed at enhancement of disaster risk reduction, prevention,
rapid response and rehabilitation in the aftermath of emergencies.
5. We welcomed the 2012 APEC Leaders’ Declaration that articulated the importance of
strengthening resilience of APEC economies to disasters through the development of disaster risk
management strategies. In accordance with the Declaration we recommended that the
Emergency Preparedness Working Group (EPWG) initiate a dialogue among policy-makers,
experts and business community with the goal of elaborating recommendations on disaster risk
management strategies based on best practices shared by APEC economies in the field.
6. We also welcomed the support expressed by APEC Leaders in Vladivostok for developing
cooperation in emergency management and disaster response preparedness among Crisis
Management Centers (CMCs) in APEC economies, including with other regional CMCs such as
ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management based in
Jakarta, Indonesia. Taking this into account we appreciated the elaboration by the Russian
Federation of recommendations on establishment of Crisis Management Centers network in
APEC region (as appended) aimed at improvement of information exchange and analysis in
support of decision making. We took into consideration these recommendations and entrusted the
EPWG in collaboration with UN OCHA to continue further work on developing cooperation among
CMCs in line with the guidance of APEC and inform on the progress at the 7th APEC Senior
Disaster Management Officials Forum in 2013.
7. The 2012 APEC Leaders’ Declaration emphasized the importance of information and
communication technologies development for supporting disaster management activities.
Regarding this we committed to foster cooperation among APEC economies aimed at
development of innovations and state-of-the-art technologies and their integration into emergency
management systems (monitoring, forecasting, early warning, etc.)
8. Taking into account the importance of recovery of agricultural production and food supply chains
in the aftermath of disasters stressed in the Kazan Declaration on APEC Food Security we
agreed to consider opportunities for cooperation to address emergency food needs.
2012/EPWG/SDMOF/008rev3
9. We recognized that disasters pose a serious threat to supply chains connectivity and transport
infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific. In this regard we welcomed the substantial progress in capacity
building to ensure resilience for all components of transport infrastructure and maintain the supply
chains connectivity in the emergencies.
10. We encouraged further work with business community on promoting business continuity plans to
enhance the resiliency of supply chains. We welcomed the outcomes of APEC High Level
Dialogue on Disaster Resiliency held in November 2011 and support efforts to promote
community based approaches, foster public-private partnership and other initiatives commenced
in this field and request the EPWG to continue relevant project activity in support of APEC
members’ efforts.
11. We took note of the initiative on the development of guidelines for financial authorities’ responses
to natural disasters supported by APEC Finance Ministers during 2012 Ministerial Meeting and
will engage in the process providing required expert support through the EPWG.
12. We acknowledged the impacts of disaster risk reduction campaigns conducted in the framework
of the International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction in Asia-Pacific region and will participate
in the dialogue on the development of the Post-2015 Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.
13. We look forward to further discuss and elaborate the work on emergency preparedness and
disaster management during Indonesia’s host of APEC 2013.