A Study Course on Disaster Management and Social Relief in Thailand and a Study Tour on Disaster Management in Sri Lanka for the Officials of the Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau, China (24th June – 4th July 2002)

20 officials of the Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau (BCAB) attended ADPC’s study course on Disaster Management and Social Relief between 24th and 28th June 2002 in Thailand. After the course, the participants went to Sri Lanka — one of the ADPC’s program countries for a study tour between 1st and 4th July.

Based on comments and requests from the Chinese participants who attended the courses, ADPC paid much attention to further improve the Chinese course for the officials of BCAB. Previous to the course, Mr. Robin Willison, Director of Technical Services and Ms. Lingling Jiang, Program Coordinator of Technical Services visited the Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau when they attended the China National Stakeholders Consultation Meeting on Cooperative Project for Combating Sand and Dust Storms in Northeast Asia in May in Beijing. At that time they had detailed discussions about the course arrangements with relevant officials of BCAB. In addition, ADPC’s Training team designed the Training Needs Assessment Questionnaire and sent it to BCAB before the course in order to assess participants’ needs for course content. This was the first time for ADPC to design such a questionnaire for the Chinese participants. 

In this course, some new topics were added, such as responding to sandstorms, environmental health, water and sanitation, preparedness planning, command and control center, management of international assistance, emergency response in USA, disasters and development, and the new trends in disaster management, etc. The participants were very interested in these topics. Moreover, two field visits were undertaken during the course. The participants went to the office of the Thai Red Cross (THRC) and visited the stockpiles of disaster relief of the THRC. They also visited the No. 1 Center of the Senior Citizen in Bangkok. 

At the closing ceremony, Dr. Suvit Yodmani, Executive Director of ADPC gave a warm speech to thank all officials, who actively participated in the course. Dr. Suvit also highly praised the good relationship and partnership between ADPC and BCAB. BCAB has been sending the officials to attend ADPC’s course since April 2000. ADPC and BCAB signed an MoU in May 2002. One of the objectives of the MoU is organizing series of training courses on Disaster Management and Social Relief and Community Based Disaster Management in ADPC for the officials of BCAB and its sub-units on an annual basis. Dr.Suvit also hopes to expand further collaboration with BCAB based on the MoU between ADPC and BCAB. Mr. Liu Zhenshan, Head of the delegation and Deputy Director of the Division of the Disaster and Social Relief of the Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau expressed his appreciations to ADPC on behalf of the participants. He said that they learned a lot from the course. The arrangements of this training course were of the extra fine quality. He also said that a one-week course seems too short and they did not want to leave ADPC because ADPC staff and environment impressed them very much.

From 1st July 2002, the Chinese delegation visited Sri Lanka -- one of the ADPC’s Asian Urban Disaster Management Program (AUDMP) countries -- accompanied by Ms. Lingling. The Sri Lanka's Center for Housing, Planning and Building (CHPB)/Sri Lanka Urban Multi Hazard Disaster Mitigation Project (SLUMDMP), the AUDMP country project partner organization, coordinated and organized this visit upon the request of ADPC. The Chinese officials traveled to Colombo, Ratnapura and Kandy, and visited the relevant government agencies at national and local level, NGOs and a famous university in Sri Lanka—University of Peradeniya. The presentation made by Sri Lankan officials and experts impressed them. The Chinese officials were also very interested in visiting and discussing with Dr.David Ratnavale, Chairman of the Human Disaster Management Council of the President’s Office of Sri Lanka. Dr. David visited China many times and published relevant articles in an International journal to introduce China after he came back. Other places visited were the Bandaranaike Museum in Colombo, which was built by the Chinese government in 1970s, the flood prone areas in Ratnapura, which was SLUMDMP Demonstration City, and the Gem mining area in Ratnapura, which causes land subsidence, etc.

The Sri Lankan people have recognized that it is very important to focus on disaster preparedness and mitigation by implementation of the SLUMDMP. This impressed the Chinese officials deeply. They expressed that they learned a lot from the experiences of Sri Lanka. In addition, the Chinese officials expressed their appreciation to the Sri Lankan team under the leadership of Mr. Lionel Hewawasam, Deputy Director of CHPB and the supervision of the Director, CHPB, Mrs. Geethi Karunaratne, who kindly assisted and guided the delegation during the study tour in Sri Lanka. 

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