Globalisation of strategies needed for disaster reduction:

The strategies of the national and local governments for dealing with any disaster should be in alignment, integrated, supportive and supplementary, Union minister Kiren Rijiju said today.
Rijiju, who co-chaired a plenary session on the 'National and Local Disaster Risk Reduction Strategies' here, said the policies, legal framework, directives and guidelines of the national government should support the strategies of the local government for implementation, enforcement, development planning and mitigation at the local level.
"What we need is globalisation of strategies," he said.
The Union minister of state for home said the national and local governments should have their own budgets for disaster risk reduction (DRR) but the additional support should be from national governments for risk reduction.

"This mitigation fund should be based on a formula based on risk, population etc. And also should be based on a system to give incentives to the good work done by the local governments and communities," he said.
Rijiju, who led the Indian delegation, said the local governments should pro-actively build capacity of the institutions and communities for DRR.

"The national government should support capacity building through networking of institutions, technical support, documenting and sharing best practices, upscaling successful projects at local level- decentralisation," he said.
The minister said DRR cannot be successful unless adequate capacity is built at the local level. Capacity building of women for DRR leadership must be given special emphasis, he said.

"Further special action to be taken to care for disabled, old aged and children," he said.
A special round table meeting was convened by UN Deputy Secretary General Amina J Mohammed to exchange views on coherence between Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Sendai framework and Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
Representing India at the meeting, P K Mishra, Additional Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, emphasised that disaster resilient infrastructure is a strategic entry point which will help us not only achieving the targets enshrined in the Sendai framework but also help in achieving SDGs and implementing the Paris agreement.

The Indian delegation emphasised that there is a need to bring greater focus in investing at the local level.
The meeting was attended by the leaders of 13 countries.