Lao PDR is vulnerable to all kinds of disasters, e.g., fires, floods, droughts, land slides and
erosion, typhoons, pets’ epidemics, earthquake etc. In the past, due to disasters, the country had suffered great losses both in physical and social economic structures. Lao PDR is yet to be strong enough to prevent and mitigate disasters. Therefore, in order to combat disasters, government along with international bodies will have to work together on both structural and non structural measures.

Realizing the importance of mainstreaming as identified by RCC, the ADPC program on
Advocacy and Capacity Building for Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction into Development (MDRD) was launched at the 4th Meeting in Bangladesh in March 2004. Based on the recommendations of earlier RCC meetings, the program seeks to systematically promote the integration of disaster risk management into sustainable development policies and practices amongst the RCC member countries linked to other efforts at regional level and built on successful experiences with the region. The program focuses on two separate approaches relating to mainstreaming DRM, namely, into overall national development planning and into specific selected sector such as Agriculture, Health, Education, Infrastructure, Housing and Financial Services.