16 Apr 2015

China: Signing of Cooperation Agreement on Disaster Risk Management

by GIDRM

Within the framework of the Global Initiative on Disaster Risk Management (GIDRM), an agreement was signed between GIZ, the Chinese Academy of Governance (CAG), and the National Institute of Emergency Management (NIEM) in Peking on 16th April 2015. The agreement aims to support and provide advice to Chinese partners to further develop integrated disaster risk management solutions from 2015 to 2017.

The forthcoming cooperation will be based on the experiences gathered during previous work on institutionalizing a cooperation and communication mechanism of disaster risk management stakeholders at the central, provincial, and municipality levels. The bilateral project was launched by the Chinese government in response to the Sichuan earthquake in 2008 and was implemented from 2009 to 2013 by GIZ.

The new agreement focuses on the improvement of the Chinese risk and emergency management system and the promotion of national and regional cooperation. Further, pilot projects are planned with the city of Tianjin and the Shaanxi Province to establish ‘model communities for disaster risk management’. In close cooperation with German expertise, this approach includes effective disaster response preparedness and management of extreme situations, and should be of replicable model-character for further cities and communities.

Another aspect of the agreement includes the support of systematic and effective knowledge sharing between relevant ministries, especially in the field of ‘emergency industry’ (EI), as well as the involvement of the private sector and academia, where research, the development of innovative solutions, and standardizing/norming are in focus.

Relevant cooperation partners on the German side are the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) and the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW). They offer extensive technical expertise in the areas of risk analysis, emergency planning, crisis management, training facilities and organisation of first-responder capacity building to implement the agreement.