ADPC welcomed the new Indian Ambassador to Thailand, H.E. Miss Vijaya Latha Reddy on the 4 April 2007 to the ADPC office and as a member of the ADPC Board of Trustees. 

Participants from the 1st Regional Training Course on Hydro-Meteorological Risk Assessment and Community Preparedness, Bangkok, Thailand, 26 March–06 April 2007 that was held as part of the PROMISE programme.

Climate Risk Management: Preparatory activities for the first Monsoon Forum, 3-13 April, Myanmar

ADPC is supporting the conduct of the first Monsoon Forum in Myanmar. The Monsoon Forum is designed to enhance the uptake of climate information for disaster mitigation by encouraging a constant dialogue between the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology (DMH) and forecast users. As preparatory activities, ADPC will be on mission to Myanmar to assess the capacity of user agencies to apply climate information for disaster mitigation and to conduct a profiling of a potential demonstration sites for climate information applications. The first Monsoon Forum will be held from 26-27 April  2007 in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar.  

Early Warning System: Establishment of the regional facility for tsunami watch provision, 23-24 April, Bangkok

Members of the Regional Technical Committee of the ADPC-facilitated regional early warning system will review the work plan and provide expert guidance for establishing the regional facility for tsunami watch provision at ADPC.  Participants include technical experts from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center; Bureau of Meteorology, Australia; Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology; Seismological Bureau of the Meteorological Department, Thailand and the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand. 

Early Warning System: User Needs Assessment for Early-Warning Information, 23-27 April, Cambodia

Under the Enhancing Community Resilience to Natural Disasters in Southeast Asia (ECRSEA) project, ADPC will be on mission to Sihanoukville Province, Cambodia to map out the information flow processes and linkages amongst local institutions, undertake research on institutions and current forecast applications, and assess user needs for early warning information. A follow up mission will be conducted from 3-11 May to establish local working groups for project implementation in Polder User and Touk L’ak communities. These activities will be carried out with the Groupe De Recherche et D'Echanges Technologiques (GRET). The project is supported by the Danish Agency for International Development (DANIDA).      

Flood modeling in Phuket, 23-29April, Thailand

ADPC in collaboration with the Norwegian Geo-technical Institute (NGI) 
with the support of Kasetsart University and the Department of Mineral Resources, Royal Thai Government will carry out a water drainage capacity assessment for the major watersheds in Phuket (Flood Modeling in Phuket).  This activity is part of the Landslide Mitigation Demonstration Project under  the Asian Program for Regional Capacity Enhancement for Landslide Impact Mitigation (RECLAIM), funded by the Royal Norwegian Embassy.

Policy and Institutional Assessment for Disaster Management, 26 April, Thailand

National consultations to finalize reviews on policy and institutional assessments will be held on 26 April 2007 with the funding support from US IOTWS. The outcomes will be presented in the final assessment report.

Vulnerability assessment, Bangladesh, April

ADPC is collaborating with CARE Bangladesh to conduct a vulnerability assessment of Chittagong.  The assessment will be carried out in the last week of April by ADPC with the help of Dhaka University.  This is under the Strengthening Household Abilities to Responding to Development Opportunities (SHOUHARDO) project of CARE Bangladesh, wherein ADPC is providing technical assistance.

Early Warning System: Regional workshop on multi-hazard end-to-end early warning, 17-20 April, Mauritius

In collaboration with Mauritius Meteorological Services, ADPC is organizing a regional workshop on multi-hazard end-to-end early warning in Vacoas, Mauritius.  The workshop brings together national focal points for early warning and disaster risk management of Comoros, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles and Tanzania to:  a) identify warning information needs of disaster risk managers, b) present available early warning information products and services, c) recommend activities to improve early warning information products, their delivery and responses, and d) share tools and experiences.

Landslide impact mitigation workshop, 28-29 April, Thailand

ADPC in collaboration with Kasetsart University and the Department of Mineral Resources, Royal Thai Government is holding a workshop with officials of Patong municipality on landslides and the enhancement of landslide impact mitigation in Patong. This workshop is also held under the Asian Program for Regional Capacity Enhancement for Landslide Impact Mitigation (RECLAIM), funded by the Royal Norwegian Embassy.

Coastal Risk Analysis of Tsunamis and Environmental Remediation (CRATER) final workshop, 30 April & 2-3 May 

Under the Project on Coastal Risk Analysis of Tsunamis and Environmental Remediation (CRATER), the Italian Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea has been implementing the project in collaboration with ADPC in Kamala Beach, Phuket and Pakarang Cape, Phangnga. The CRATER project approach involves analysis of risks arising from the tsunami impacts in coastal areas. The final workshops will be on 30 April 2007 in Phuket, and from 2 to 3 May 2007 in Bangkok. The workshop will be chaired by Dr. Corrado Clini, Director General of the Italian Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea and Dr. Suvit Yodmani, Minister of Tourism and Sports for Thailand.

Phuket Tourism Risk Management Strategy launch, 30 April, Phuket

ADPC, under the APEC International Center for Sustainable Tourism (AICST) project, funded by AusAID and in partnership with AICST and the Office of Tourism Development, Ministry of Tourism and Sports, has been developing the Phuket Tourism Management Strategy. The final workshop on 30 April 2007 will launch the initiative. Dr. Suvit Yodmani, Minister of Tourism and Sports will preside over the workshop.

Early Warning System: Incident Command System  (ICS) training, 30 April-4 May, Indonesia

ADPC will facilitate National Basic and Intermediate Incident Command System (ICS) Training in Jakarta. The training will be conducted in partnership with the US Department of Agriculture and US Forest Service under the US Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System (IOTWS) program. A similar training was organized in Sri Lanka in 2006 to support the institutionalization of ICS in the country.

APEC Exercise management workshop, 30 April-4 May, Bangkok

The workshop plans to enhance APEC members’ ability to design, conduct and evaluate emergency management simulation exercises. The objectives of the workshop are to provide participants with the skills and knowledge required to conduct simulation exercises; the opportunity to practice the skills and knowledge required to conduct a simulation exercise; and to provide a range of resources that the participants can use to conduct simulation exercise in their own economies.

Collaborating partners are the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) with the funding support from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

Early Warning System: Incident Command System (ICS) for disaster management, 8-11 May, Sri Lanka

Under the US Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System (IOTWS), ADPC will facilitate a ‘Regional Workshop on Incident Command Systems for Disaster Management’ to share best management practices, information and lessons learned from implementation and use in the US and other countries.  The workshop will also serve as a platform for discussing key issues and challenges in developing a standard emergency system in the Indian Ocean countries.  The regional workshop will be conducted in partnership with the US Department of Agriculture and US Forest Service.  

Governance and Disaster Risk Reduction course, May, Bangladesh

ADPC is collaborating with CARE Bangladesh to hold a course on Governance and Disaster Risk Reduction in the first week of May.  The target participants are municipal (pourashava) officials of Chittagong, Bangladesh.  The purpose of the course is to enhance the participants' awareness of disaster management, and their roles in promoting community-based disaster risk management.  This is under the Strengthening Household Abilities to Responding to Development Opportunities (SHOUHARDO) project of CARE Bangladesh, wherein ADPC is providing technical assistance.