MORE public-private partnership (PPP) projects are needed to further boost risk reduction and management efforts and better prepare the country for calamities and other emergencies, disaster reduction experts agreed.
This was the consensus arrived at the Arise Philippines Forum hosted by SM Prime recently at the Mall of Asia to discuss best practices in disaster risk reduction and management (DRRM). The forum was held in partnership with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction-Private Sector Alliance for Disaster Resilient Societies.
The risk reduction experts led by Defense Undersecretary Alexander Pama, administrator of the Office of Civil Defense and executive director of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council; Dr. Renato Solidum Jr., director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology; Dr. Mahar Lagmay, executive director of Project Noah; Noel Gaerlan, commissioner of the Philippine Climate Change Commission, and Rene Meily, president of the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation, all agreed there should be more government-private sector collaboration in DRRM.
“It is time we level up public-private partnership and put it into disaster management. We are all stakeholders and we all should do our part,” Pama said.
The one-day forum was aimed at providing businesses with an outline of the role of the private sector in disaster risk reduction and management.