DUSHANBE, June 11, 2013, Asia-Plus — The World Bank has identified Tajikistan as one of the disaster hot-spot countries in the world and the most vulnerable country to climate change in Eurasia. The isolated mountainous communities of Tajikistan are subject to frequent hazards such as Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs), avalanches, landslides and earthquakes, press release issued by Focus Humanitarian Assistance (FOCUS) said.
In order to reduce the risk to these mountainous communities and increase response capacity FOCUS jointly with the Committee of Emergency Situations and Civil Defense (CoES), and with financial support from the European Commission’s Department for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO) under its Disaster Preparedness Program (DIPECHO) VII grant award, conducted a Disaster Assessment and Response Team (DART) Training from June 1 to June 7 in Khorog, Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO), for government representatives and members of the civil society.
The seven-day training reportedly brought together 30 participants from government agencies and international organizations. The training focused on increasing the participants’ understanding of the disaster management cycle, inter-institutional contingency planning, disaster preparedness and response planning. These skills will enable the participants to better respond to natural disasters and thereby reduce vulnerability of the local population. The training was conducted by Jeffery Klenk, an international expert with over 20 years of experience in training government representatives and other agencies in disaster preparedness and response. Jeffery worked closely with FOCUS Tajikistan in developing the course material and customizing the context to Tajikistan.
The training began with opening remarks by Mr. Davlat Abdurahmonov, Deputy Head of GBAO CoES, who expressed the importance of the training and the great opportunity that it presented for the government and other stakeholders to increase their capacity. He asked the participants to take advantage of this opportunity and hoped that they would incorporate the learning gained from this training in their work. He also thanked ECHO and FOCUS for their commitment to building the capacity of the government and looked forward to future collaborations.
Mr. Nashir Karmali, Executive Officer of FOCUS Tajikistan, hopes that a well-trained inter-disciplinary team based in GBAO will be able to react quickly in the province as well as nationally if necessary, to assess, plan and coordinate the response for any disaster.
FOCUS has been an implementing partner for DIPECHO for over 10 years in Tajikistan implementing community based disaster risk reduction activities in over 250 vulnerable communities in GBAO. Activities include conducting hazard vulnerability risk assessments, awareness-raising amongst adults and school children, implementing small-scale mitigation projects, training of community volunteers, establishing school response teams, as well as providing technical capacity building support to local disaster management institutions.
