The conference proposed the Hyogo Declaration, which embodies the philosophy of global disaster reduction, and worked out the Hyogo Action Plan - a 10-year scheme for international cooperation in disaster relief. It is worth noting that the Japanese government and the UN together called for setting up an international disaster reduction institution focused on long-term support for post-disaster reconstruction. It would join the WHO center in Kobe, which was born in response to the Hanshin earthquake, as an international disaster reduction cooperation base.
The new international disaster reduction institution would formulate effective long-term international disaster prevention and reduction measures. It would also provide intellectual support for the construction of a global disaster prevention and reduction system by hiring experts from all over the world to collect useful data at the scenes of disasters and conduct scientific research on the spot.
As a matter of fact, China has also played an active role in pushing for an international disaster prevention and reduction system. In August 2007, the third world conference on disaster reduction was held in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province in Northeast China. It was jointly organized by the Ministry of Water Resources and the UNESCO. An international exhibition of rescue technology and equipment was held on the side of the conference and served as a venue for international exchanges on disaster prevention and reduction cooperation. The conference took the philosophy of international cooperation in disaster reduction to another level, implemented the disaster reduction strategy adopted at the 2005 Kobe conference and advanced the construction of an international cooperation-based disaster reduction system.
In view of international aid for cyclone-battered Myanmar last month, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers' emergency meeting last month came up with the idea of forming an ASEAN disaster relief system with conditional openness. It was seen as another way to construct a regional disaster prevention and reduction system.
From a regional point of view, Asia is one of the regions in the world hit most frequently by natural disasters due to its vast area and long coastlines with a wide range of climatic as well as geographical features. In the past decade or so in particular, the region's tectonic plates have shown heightened activities with the number of earthquakes and tsunamis on the rise; while extreme weather conditions such as floods, droughts and blizzards often caught people by surprise. Accompanied by epidemic and communal diseases and even the plague, natural disasters have become a new threat to Asia's prosperity. The construction of a regional cooperative system of disaster prevention and reduction is now more urgent than ever.
