The Philippines has renewed its commitment to the international community to adopt anticipatory action to prevent or mitigate potential disaster impacts even before such crises happen.
“We’ve gained the wisdom that predicting, preventing and mitigating the shock and impact of a disaster are key to risk reduction and management,” Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said at a virtual high-level humanitarian event, “Anticipatory Action: A Commitment to Act Before Crises” on September 9, 2021.
Anticipatory action is a set of actions taken to prevent or mitigate potential disaster impacts before a shock or before acute impacts are felt. It is carried out in anticipation of a shock, based on a prediction of how the event will unfold.
The anticipatory action event comes ahead of the United Nations climate change conference or the COP26 (Conference of the Parties) in Glasgow next month, recognizing the growing impact of climate change on the severity and frequency of disasters.
In his remarks, Locsin explained that the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) and National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Plan (NDRRMP) actions worked due to the agencies’ data sharing, creation of command systems and emergency operation centers at national and local levels. Vital to all these, he said, is the collective effort of the Filipinos, government and the public.
He said the Philippines developed the HunterHazard app to provide land developers risk information and assessment of a particular area and the establishment of the Philippine Space Agency to strengthen hazard monitoring and forecasting through earth observation through satellite sensing.
Since 2015, the Philippines have been working with the Philippine Red Cross, the UN World Food Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and other stakeholders to build capacity.
The Secretary also added that the Philippines is an active supporter of the UN Central Emergency Fund (CERF) and looks forward to working as a pilot country with CERF in its project on anticipatory action to typhoons.
The UN and the governments of Germany and the United Kingdom convened the Anticipatory Event 2021 to advance anticipatory action and galvanize a collective push to act ahead of crises.