Albay is Phl’s bet for UN award on disaster management

MANILA, Philippines - Albay is the Philippines’ bet for the prestigious 2015 United Nations Sasakawa Award for Disaster Risk Reduction in March next year.

The award is givcn to an individual or institutions that have taken active efforts in reducing disaster risk in their communities.

Albay Gov. Joey Salceda said his province is banking on the province’s “strong culture of disaster resilience.”

Salceda said Albay’s strategy on early relief and recovery has also impressed participants in the recently concluded World Bank summit on disaster risk reduction program.

They cited Albay as a model in disaster risk reduction (DRR) for social protection and being the only province in the country to have built 11 permanent evacuation centers.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Social Welfare and Development and attended by representatives from 27 countries, including officials from the Australian Aid, Asian Development Bank, and the United States Agency for International Development, the summit was held early this month at the Crowne Plaza Galleria, Quezon City.

During the summit, Salceda presented the Albay DRR strategy focused on effective DRR management in relation to social protection.

Albay hosts an active volcano and is visited by strong typhoons the whole year round which cause major floods in many areas.

Through a pioneering DRR strategy, the province has mastered disaster resilience to become the country’s fastest growing tourist destination and hub of development in the Bicol region.

Participants praised Albay’s “Zero Casualty” goal through preemptive evacuation and the doctrine of safety first via buffer maintenance, which emphasizes “quality and accountability of humanitarian response.”

It employs packets of monetarist approaches which rely on local social security systems such as loan payment deferrals, emergency loans and easy access home rebuilding loans.