Bapatla,AP: National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) in association with APHRDI (Andhra Pradesh Human Resource Development Institute) conducted a 3-days training programmer on Post Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) for State Govt. officials from May 01-03, 2019 at its Child Centric Disaster Risk Reduction Center (CCDRR) at Bapatla, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh. About 80 Government official from 12 different Govt. departments and 9 different states including North-Eastern States and also from Jammu & Kashmir successfully participated in the this 3-days training.
Disasters in the country disrupt the normal life and damage large number of houses, infrastructure, crop, etc. Concurrently, Odhisha is facing the severe cyclone Fani and damage to infrastructure and livelihood cannot be ruled out.
Post disaster activities include assessment of damage, preparation of memorandum to obtain relief for the damage that has occurred. The existing mechanism for assessment of damage and needs, prevailing in the country, is of ad-hoc nature and at times is not accepted by the donor agencies. In order to overcome this, NIDM jpintly with Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre, Bangkok has developed and customized scientific PDNA tools for assessment of the impacts of disasters under the World Bank assisted National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project. The tool helps identifying needs for long-term disaster recovery and is based on internationally accepted methodology which is being used world-wide and adopted by the United Nations Development Group (UNDG), the European Union (EU) and the World Bank under a joint declaration signed in 2008 on Post Crisis Assessment and Recovery Planning.
The tools (Handbook, Manual and SoP) have been developed on analysis of existing systems in India with recommendations derived from international best practices. The PDNA incorporates physical, socio-economic and environmental aspects that help achieving all-inclusive recovery with disaster resilient reconstruction.
Prof. Santosh Kumar, NIDM painstakingly steered most of the sessions on PDNA. Shekher Chaturvedi, Assistant Professor, NIDM and Dr. Ravi Babu, Assist Prof., Agricultural University, Bapatla, also described basics on using PDNA as a tool for damage assessment. Having the potential of moulding a Nation’s future vested in children, keeping in view the rising numbers of disasters and their severity, considering child centric issues and their vulnerabilities is of higher importance, training also gave ample attention in discussing the necessity of child centric angle in the Needs Assessment. Child Centric DRR Centre is (a Joint initiative of NIDM and UNICEF). Dr.Kumar Raka, Programme Officer; Dr. Asharose & Dr. Balu I. Thevar, Project Associates of CCDRR Centre were instrumental in coordinating, organizing and successful delivery of 3-days training. Shri Chakrapani Dittakavi (DG, APHRDI) gave the valedictory speech recognizing the need of conducting such trainings on a regular basis.
