Punjab Study

LAHORE: January 27:EXPERTS have stressed the need for formal training and education in disaster management and humanitarian relief at the same time asking media to play its role in educating masses about natural disasters and the ways and means available to deal with them effectively.

“Pakistan is in need of highly trained professionals to manage and direct programmes to reduce public health threats such as dengue outbreak that continues to plague us. Where and when the next flood or earthquake will strike or how the next terrorist group will respond is unknown. But the logic behind professionally mitigating and preparing for one of these incidences places us in a stronger position to respond.”

These views were expressed during an international seminar on human disaster management held at University of Health Sciences (UHS) on Thursday. The seminar was organized by UHS Director Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT) Prof. Arif Rashid Khawaja, in collaboration with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicines (LSTM), UK. The theme of the seminar was “Role of Academia and Media in Human Disaster Management”.

Addressing the inaugural session, LSTM Director of Humanitarian Studies Prof. Timothy O’ Dempsey said that humanitarian assistance had become a rapidly expanding and multi-billion dollar global industry with an estimated workforce of approximately 250,000 that impacted directly on the lives, livelihood, health and wellbeing of millions of the world’s most vulnerable people.

Chairman, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Dr. Zafar Iqbal Qadir said that with probability of occurrence of disasters increasing every year and South Asia being the most vulnerable part on earth to natural disasters, it demanded a holistic approach to pre-empt, mitigate and strategise managing a post-disaster scenario.

He added the approach required commitment of the government’s trained human resource, a new vision of academia towards disaster management as an expert field and a systemic management of data at public and private level.

UHS Vice Chancellor Prof. Malik Hussain Mubbashar said that historically, disaster management in Pakistan revolved around floods, focusing on rescue and relief. After each disaster, the government incurred considerable expenditures on rescue, relief and rehabilitation in addition to the loss of development funding which was diverted to meet critical needs.

Prof. Mubbashar further said that UHS and LSTM had entered into an agreement to collaborate in devising joint strategies for promoting awareness, providing cheap and affordable preventive solution and encouraging indigenous research on tropical diseases such as tuberculosis, typhoid, hepatitis, dengue, malaria and other vector-borne diseases.

Chief of Staff, Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA), Brig. Syed Wajid Raza said that there was a need for sharing expertise and learning from past experience. There should be a scientific research and training in disaster management in which UHS must take a lead, he added. Director General Punjab Emergency Services (Rescue 1122) Dr. Rizwan Naseer said that every disaster was a wakeup call, an opportunity for the development.

Other speakers of the seminar included Dr. Barry Munslow from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicines, UK, Munir Sheikh, Head Climatology Section, Global Change Impact Studies Centre, Islamabad, Farhan Shoaib, Policy Advisor PDMA, Dr. Farooq Butt, President Disaster Relief Aine Fay, County Director, Concern Worldwide and Richard Lorenz, Country Programme Director, Red R, UK. Representatives of print and electronic media also participated.The news.