Saying that changing scale, type and scope of disasters is giving more surprises now, Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) Bishnupada Sethi emphasised that there is no way that we can ignore risks and yet expect to reduce disaster distresses. Sethi was addressing the inaugural session of a two-day State-level consultation on ‘Risk Informed Development’ which was held here recently.
The consultation was jointly organised by Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA), Unicef , IAG and Oxfam India.
APC Gagan Kumar Dhal graced the occasion along with IAG State chief Aurobindo Behera and Unicef chief Monica Nelson and others.
The senior officials of the Government departments, district level offices associated with planning and disaster management, scientists and experts, civil society representatives working on disaster risk reduction discussed on the needs and ways to integrate risks in planning and development action.
The consultation focused on eight important sectors – health, water, sanitation, education, child protection, livelihoods, food security, shelter and infrastructure.
Principal Secretary of Agriculture Saurabh Garg, national and international experts like Vinod Menon, Chandran Ghosh of National Institute of Disaster Management, Director General of ICAR Trilochan Mahapatra, agriculture scientist and gene activist SumanSahai, Somnath Hazra, PK Das, Pankaj Anand, Director of Oxfam India, Unicef’s sector experts Vivek Virender Singh, Laxminarayan Nanda, SipraSaxena and other experts and researchers provided leads for discussion in the consultation.
Dwelling on the backdrops of recent disasters and briefing on the objective of the consultation, Regional Manager of Oxfam India Akshaya Biswal said that development initiatives can affect us both ways as poor integration of risks will increase our disaster distress and good integration of risks will reduce our disaster risks; and hence, the consultation expects to speed up coordinated actions to identify and integrate risks.