A delegation of Young Parliamentarian Forum (YPF) from Pakistan Institute for Parliamentarian Services, visited National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) today. The YPF was established in 2003. The newly elected parliament has a large number of young members and among them many first time legislators. The purpose of the visit was to get first hand information/ knowledge about the disaster management system in Pakistan, current flood situation, rescue and relief efforts in the country being undertaken under all three tiers of disaster management system.
The briefing was chaired by Chairman NDMA (Major General Saeed Aleem) and also attended by Member DRR (Mr. Ahmed Kamal) Member S&S (Mr. Ashraf) besides other related officials of NDMA.
Chairman NDMA extended warm welcome to the delegation and appreciated their spirit and initiative to contribute in ongoing flood disaster situation. He gave an overview of the riverine floods that started on 4th Chairman NDMA while giving a detailed perspective of the 2014 floods, apprised that the impact of flood has reduced now whereas relief activities are still ongoing with essential focus on Chiniot, Jhang, Multan, Muzaffargarh and parts of Rajanpur districts. He also dilated upon the shift in focus from a reactive approach to a more proactive approach of NDMA to build and further enhance the resilience of communities towards disaster. Chairman emphasized the need of strengthening flood protection system, improving response capacity and training of volunteers for integrating them in DM system. He referred to Provincial Disaster Management Authorities (PDMAs) as primary implementation tier to provide human resource, necessary relief stock, damage assessment, rehabilitation and reconstruction for the flood affectees and also stressed the need to strengthen district level tier of DM system to ensure better response to emergency at community level.