New Global Initiative Seeks to Advance Disaster Preparedness
Towards A Safer World launched to capture lessons from pandemic preparedness to
help disaster professionals better plan, coordinate and respond to all types of disasters
Rome, ITALY - May 10, 2011 — The United Nations System for Influenza Coordination
(UNSIC) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have organized a
new global initiative, Towards A Safer World (TASW), dedicated to examining what has
been achieved from preparing for an influenza pandemic over the past five years and
inspire leaders to apply those lessons and best practices to continuing and emerging
threats.
“Disaster preparedness is often an overlooked, underfunded, and under planned service
that only gets attention when disaster strikes,” said Dr. David Nabarro (Senior UN
System Coordinator for Avian and Human Influenza). “Towards A Safer World fills the
critical need that exists to determine and develop tools and forums that can be of
tangible use to the wider disaster management community and help to optimize the
actual utilization and sustainability of the lessons we’ve learned over the last five years
in responding to the threat of influenza pandemic.”
Towards A Safer World seeks to capture the achievements of the major efforts
undertaken since 2005 as a reaction to the threats of global influenza pandemics. That
response resulted in diverse actors collaborating and taking actions to prepare for and
mitigate the potentially devastating disruption on the vital functions of society. TASW
believes that this unprecedented level of multi-sector planning offers a unique
opportunity to identify key elements that can advance all disaster preparedness
activities.
Towards A Safer World is working to engage the broader disaster community in a
dialogue around the most effective elements that can be adopted in any disaster
preparedness effort. The initiative is preparing a series of reports documenting key
achievements and lessons from pandemic preparedness organized around ten thematic
areas: bio-security and animal health, civil-military coordination, communication,
community-level preparedness, health, humanitarian assistance, logistics, private sector
preparedness, travel and tourism and whole of government planning.
These reports will form the basis for a new online community forum organized by TASW
– www.towardsasaferworld.org – where leaders, disaster managers and community
planners from around the world can connect and collaborate on best practices,
resources and challenges for disaster preparedness efforts.
The findings from these reports and the online discussions will be presented at a TASW
conference at the World Food Programme - HQ in Rome, Italy on 15 – 16 September
2011, gathering participants from governments, UN agencies, technical and specialized
agencies, NGOs, community-based organizations and private companies. This
conference will serve as a working session to review, discuss and further explore the
lessons and best practices most critical for future global disaster preparedness.
“The urgency of building national and local capacities for preparedness is wellrecognized, yet systematic and predictable solutions to building those capacities have
remained elusive,” stated Dr. Ron Waldman (Senior Technical Advisor, USAID).
“Towards A Safer World is providing its analysis and organizing forums so that key
actors from all critical sectors engage as a global community committed to adopting
more effective and efficient preparedness efforts.”
About Towards A Safer World
Led by the United Nations System for Influenza Coordination (UNSIC) and implemented
by representatives from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the World Food
Programme, the World Health Organization, World Tourism Organization, and the Food
and Agriculture Organization, Towards A Safer World will closely examine what has
worked and what has not in disaster and pandemic preparedness and response since
2005, and design a guide/toolkit/process that will help disaster professionals and nondisaster experts in better planning, coordinating and responding to all types of disasters.
For more information, please visit http://www.towardsasaferworld.org
Follow TASW news updates on Twitter: @tasw_initiative
Media Contacts:
David Zucker
dzucker@brodeur.com
Mobile: +1- 917-617-0584
Office: +1- 212-336-7523