Sixth AMCDRR officially opened in Bangkok

BANGKOK, June 24 (TNA) - Thailand hosts the 6th Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (AMCDRR) in Bangkok from June 22-26, 2014, the results of which will be proposed to the UN General Assembly in New York later this year. General Tanasak Patimapragorn, a deputy chief of the army-led National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), who is also Supreme Commander, inaugurated the five-day regional forum, held at the CentralWorld shopping complex in the capital, on Tuesday morning. Thai Permanent Secretary for Interior Wibul Sa-nguanpong, in his capacity as Acting Interior Minister, said the 6th AMCDRR is the last regional forum before next year's expiration of a 10-year regional framework on disaster mitigation, called the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015. Wibul revealed that participants in the 6th AMCDRR are, thus, reviewing achievements in disaster risk reduction in the region over the past decade and also planning the disaster risk reduction for the next decade. According to the acting interior minister, results of the 6th AMCDRR conference will be proposed to the UN General Assembly in New York in September 2014 and will be then endorsed by the 3rd World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) in Japan's Sendai City in March 2015. The acting interior minister acknowledged that the ongoing five-day forum also focuses on promoting regional investment to enable countries and communities to cope with disasters and to quickly recover from them. The Bangkok Declaration will then be issued at the end of the five-day regional gathering, consisting of a framework for disaster risk reduction in the next decade and proposals on participation in disaster risk reduction from the participating countries. Margot Wallstrom, a UN special representative for disaster risk reduction, stated, meanwhile, that Asia and the Pacific has faced the greatest risk of natural disasters over the past decade, when there have been more than 10 big disasters. Wallstrom pointed out that the 6th AMCDRR conference creates a good opportunity for experience exchange and the planning of disaster risk reduction among the participants. General Tanasak suggested that the participating countries can use the conference as an occasion to collectively try to cope with regional disasters for mutual benefits.(TNA)