Unesco Program
Capacity Building for Natural Disaster
Reduction CBNDR

Knowledge of the relationships between geology, landforms and the levels of risk for population and infrastructure has been developed in many countries. In many cases, however, this knowledge has not been applied in the process of planning new housing and infrastructure. The application of up-to-date hazard zonation methodologies is often absent. Consequently, development planners lack proper maps and local authorities have no plans or risk scenarios for vulnerability reduction. Decision-makers too fail to grasp that the implementation of preventive and mitigation measures will pay off in the future.

THE CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAM FOR NATURAL DISASTER REDUCTION (CBNDR)

To address these problems, UNESCO has initiated the CBNDR program, with financial support from the Netherlands Government. The aim of the program is to coordinate the transfer of state-of-the-art knowledge with respect to natural hazard and risk zonation to organizations and institutions in developing countries. The acquired knowledge can assist these institutions to integrate existing (geo-) information and provide appropriate hazard and risk information to local authorities, thus effectively contributing to vulnerability reduction with regard both to disaster prevention in existing towns and cities and to new infrastructure and land-use planning.

REGIONAL ACTION PROGRAMS

In pursuing its aims, the UNESCO CBNDR will initiate and support regional action programs with the following activities:

• The integration of existing local knowledge on the occurrence of geohazards and the available methods and techniques for geo-information handling and spatial modeling in order to provide practical methodologies for producing natural hazard, vulnerability and risk information at various scales.
• Developing, together with the user community, appropriate visualization techniques and decision support systems to ensure the proper contribution of geohazard information to the development planning process.

THE FIRST REGIONAL ACTION PROGRAM:
CENTRAL AMERICA (RAP-CA)

Central America is the region selected for the first regional action program. CEPREDENAC, the intergovernmental Centro de Coordinación para la Prevención de los Desastres Naturales en America Central, is the coordinating agency for the region. The RAP-CA will start in April 2000 in the Netherlands with an intensive 10-week introductory course for 20 to 25 participants. The main content of this course covers:

• information requirements for vulnerability reduction
• principles of hazard, risk and vulnerability zoning
• use of GIS for data integration, spatial modeling and analysis
• GIS-based digital cartography methods.

The course concentrates on four types of hazard -volcanism, landslides, floods and seismicity- and will be followed by a case study (including fieldwork and map production) in Costa Rica.

After the introductory course and case study, participants will return to their institutions and carry out their usual work, but now using the acquired methodology. Over a period of three years, the RAP-CA will annually organize four one-week meetings (in the Cepredenac countries, and hosted by one of the employer organizations). During these meetings, participants working on the same topics (landslides, floods, etc.) can, in company with the international expert, meet to present achievements in their own work and discuss problems encountered.

To round off the program, in 2003 CEPREDENAC will organize a large Central American specialists meeting, where the RAP-CA achievements will be presented to all institutions in the region working in disaster prevention. A handbook, a self-training package and case history documentation will be made available at that meeting.

The long-term objective is to strengthen the capacity of institutions in the Central American region to participate in national, regional and local development programs for the reduction of vulnerability to natural hazards.

ACTORS IN THIS REGIONAL ACTION PROGRAM
CENTRAL AMERICA ARE: TARGET INSTITUTIONS

Key institutions involved in disaster reduction in the eight CEPREDENAC countries: Belize, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama.

The program secretariat plans to develop and secure funding for similar regional action programs with institutions in developing countries in other regions of the world.

Further information about the UNESCO CBNDR
program can be obtained from:
The CBNDR Program Secretariat c/o ITC
P.O. Box 6, 7500 AA Enschede, The Netherlands
Tel. +31-(0)53-4874 213 / 221 Fax: +31-(0)53-4874 200
E-mail: cbndr.unesco@itc.nl