The National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM) held the “29th National Forum on Disaster Risk Reduction” on July 13 to gather additional information in its report on disaster prevention measures, while announcing that it would purchase lightning protection equipment for use in certain vulnerable areas.
The national forum held on July 13 discussed current progress in the implementation of the Kingdom’s “Sendai Framework”.
Cambodia participates in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, which was adopted at the Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in 2015 in Sendai, Japan, and sets the goals world disaster risk reduction.
NCDM Chief Minister and First Vice President Kun Kim said the Cambodian government is committed to fully implementing the Sendai Framework.
He said that with regard to the Sendai Framework, Cambodia has defined its main disaster risk reduction objectives through disaster risk reduction action plans for the years 2014-2023, 2019-2023 and its strategic plan to deal with climate change.
“This forum aims to promote a culture of sharing knowledge, experiences and good practices in disaster risk reduction activities through exchanges of views among themselves and between relevant ministries, sub-national institutions, government units, development partners, national and international organizations and the private sector,” he said.
He said Cambodia is striving to strengthen policies, strategies and investments to reduce disaster risk and the impacts of all kinds of disasters, now and in the future, in order to increase safety in all the countries.
He added that Cambodia faces natural disasters every year that destroy property and end lives, such as floods, storms, lightning, droughts, bank collapses and epidemics.
Of all the natural disasters in Cambodia, he said lightning strikes are a constant killer every year and the toll in recent years has been quite high. He wanted to make partner organizations aware of the issue and encourage the provincial claims management secretariat to take an interest in this matter.
NCDM Chief Minister and First Vice President Kun Kim speaking at the “29th National Forum on Disaster Risk Reduction” on July 13. NCDM
“I plan to ask the Ministry of Economy and Finance to look into the possibility of solving the problem of lightning, because it concerns people’s lives. Lightning has killed many of our citizens and, by examining statistics over the years, there have been too many deaths.
“So we have to think about the places that need help and the provincial secretariats have to pay attention to their locations and make requests to partner organizations so that the state can install lightning rods to protect people,” he said. he declares.
He spoke of lightning that frequently occurred in some areas of Siem Reap province, but after the governor of the province purchased protective equipment for use there, the number of strikes dropped significantly.
According to the NCDM report, in the first six months of 2022, there were 61 lightning strikes, which damaged 11 homes, killed 32 people, injured 26 and killed 69 cattle.
Ma Norith, Deputy Secretary General of NCDM, said that throughout the day of the forum, various presentations were made on topics such as key achievements, presentations from representatives of search and rescue teams, women outstanding in disaster risk reduction, presentations from partner organizations and sharing and updating the results of the work they have done.
“The NCDM still has a lot of work to do after receiving these contributions. We continue to work with the parties concerned to verify and prepare these contributions in accordance with the guidelines of the United Nations agencies in charge of disaster risk reduction,” said he added.
He also pointed out that over the past five years, NCDM, ministries, government institutions, sub-national government, Cambodian Red Cross Society, all partner organizations and the private sector have implemented many projects and achieved many advances in Cambodia’s disaster risk reduction efforts in response to its Sendai commitments.
