The Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA) under a UNDP project on ‘Enhancing Institutional and Community Resilience to Disaster and Climate Change’ conducted Training Needs Assessment (TNA) on Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation here recently.
This is first-ever such training need assessment in Odisha leading to climate smart disaster risk reduction, said Ambika Prasad of the UNDP. The State wide exercise was facilitated by All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (AIDMI). The AIDMI is author of IPCC global report on extreme climate events. All the stakeholders came together to contribute to training needs assessment. It was attended by key departments’ heads, district administrations, NGOs and INGOs.
The TNA is focused on closure integration between risk reduction and adaptation to climate change. The collaboration between DRR community and climate change community will be further strengthened based on the TNA exercise, said OSDMA MD and Additional Chief Secretary (Revenue) Dr Taradatt.
The efforts should now be more focused towards reducing loss and damage in vulnerable urban locations of Odisha, said BMC Additional Commissioner Brinda D. Odisha should lay emphasis on knowledge management and sharing at regional level with focus on coastal areas of Bay of Bengal, said AIDMI head Mihir Bhatt, adding that Odisha has so much to offer from its experience.