Vietnam Disaster Management Center Director Visits PDC

PDC has undertaken many projects to assist Vietnam with the enhancement of its capacity for disaster management. This visit sets the stage for more and closer cooperation for years to come.

Vietnam Disaster Management Center Director Dr. Nguyen Huu Phuc presents gifts to PDC Deputy Executive Director Chris Chiesa, left, and Southeast Asia Program Advisor Nathan Sage.

Since 2004, PDC has conducted numerous projects in cooperation with government agencies in Vietnam, all with the common purpose of improving disaster management to save lives and livelihoods in the hazard-prone nation.

In 2005, the Vietnam Central Committee on Flood and Storm Control (CCFSC) and PDC collaborated to organize an “International Workshop on Research and Management of Landslide Disaster in Vietnam.” A key concept that emerged from that workshop the need to establish an all-hazard national disaster management center. Ever since that time, PDC has worked with Vietnam’s Disaster Management Center (DMC) to help increase its capacity to serve its stated goal of “developing institutional capacity, system capacity, and human capacity in terms of natural disaster prevention and mitigation, and climate change adaptation for both the short term and long term.”

DMC Director Dr. Nguyen Huu Phuc was in Hawaii to participate in the Asia-Pacific Resilience and Sustainability Workshop in Honolulu earlier this month. While here, he made time to visit PDC to coordinate efforts for the upcoming launch of PDC’s latest capacity enhancement project with DMC. Under funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) PDC will extend the previously-developed VinAWARE system to further enhance flood early warning in central Vietnam.

VinAWARE, developed under USTDA funding, was successfully used during the 2011 storm season to provide timely storm and flood warning messages to national and provincial disaster managers in Vietnam.

In addition to discussing the new Flood Early Warning Project, PDC staff and Dr. Phuc reviewed other pending activities including U.S. Office of Defense Cooperation plans to assist in the development of district-level disaster management coordinating centers, multi-lateral efforts involving the American Red Cross and others, and additional plans for PDC engagement with the disaster management community of Vietnam.

PDC subject matter experts presented Dr. Phuc with demonstrations of the Emergency Operations (EMOPS) system, PDC-developed disaster management training programs, flood modeling options, and disaster management exercises.

Dr. Phuc said, “PDC has been a good institutional partner with Vietnam, helping us develop capacity in disaster management/early warning. We welcome continued cooperation under the FEW2 project as well as via ASEAN and APEC.”

Explore the longstanding relationship between PDC and Vietnam in these resources:

•     A fact sheet on International Capacity Development
•     The story of the 2005 Landslide Workshop produced in Vietnam
•     PDC’s Project Profile for the first several years of collaboration with Vietnam
•     A Vietnamese intern gained professional experience at PDC in 2008
•     The first Flood Early Warning Project launched in 2009
•     The story of the Vietnam training curriculum developed by PDC, 2010
•     Special training in the use of PDC’s DisasterAWARE was conducted in Vietnam
•     News of PDC projects in Vietnam as of April 2010
•     Visitors came to PDC as part of the Flood Early Warning Phase One project
•     A description of the first use of the VinAWARE decision support system
•     There are hundreds of pages about Vietnam at www.pdc.org, which can be found by using the “Search this site” box, upper left on the home page.
•     To see what Dr. Phuc and the DMC are doing, go to www.dmc.gov.vn

To keep yourself up-to-the-minute about hazards and disasters:

•     Downloading the free PDC Disaster Alert mobile app for your iOS and Android devices,
•     Following us on Twitter and Facebook (/DisasterAWARE), or
•     Using PDC’s Global Hazards Atlas from any computer.

For the latest Weather and Disaster News, use the PDC Weather Wall.

While you are thinking of hazards, think of preparedness. PDC provides disaster preparedness information, including printable instructions for assembling a Disaster Supply Kit and rehearsing a Family Disaster Plan.