The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
The Philippines has urged its fellow member-states in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to build a region-wide database on disaster risk management to facilitate the sharing of information on mitigating the effects of climate change and ensure timely cooperation among them in the face of calamities.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said that despite “existing capacity constraints,” the Philippines is now spearheading this initiative by sharing information with its private sector to enable better coordination in times of disasters and other emergencies.
Dominguez issued this urgent call after he and his fellow finance ministers and the central bank governors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) underscored the importance of strengthening their respective countries’ resilience against natural disasasters during their recent joint meeting in Singapore. In their Joint Statement issued after their meeting, the Asean Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors said the resilience of the Asean member-states against natural disasters “is important for sustaining growth as well as protecting our people’s well-being.”
“We note the ongoing Asean Disaster Financing and Insurance (ADRFI) initiatives to enhance the region’s capacity to adopt and implement ex-ante and ex-post disaster risk management measures. Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar are working together to launch the Southeast Asia Disaster Risk Insurance Facility (SEADRIF) as a disaster risk management solution for the region,” a portion of the Joint Statement of the 4thAsean Finance Ministers’ and Central Bank Governors’ Meeting states.
Aware of the irreversible damage wrought by the now-erratic weather patterns, Dominguez said the Philippine government is carrying out its disaster risk management measures with a “sense of urgency” to best safeguard the country’s vulnerable communities against climate change.
“Within the existing capacity constraints, we are building databases and constantly improving on the quality and amount of data available to identify vulnerabilities and manage risks,” Dominguez said. “This is a continuing effort,” Dominguez noted.