'Resilient Cities' and 'one million Safe Schools, Hospitals' campaign launched

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and United Nations (UN) on Saturday launched the "Resilient Cities" and "One Million Safe Schools and Hospitals" campaign in Pakistan by registering 263 schools and 23 hospitals from 30 cities.
"On the first day of registration 216 schools and 23 hospitals from 30 poor cities have shown commitment to the campaign" said Special Representative of UN on Disaster risk Management, Margareta Wahjsltrom who is heading the campaign globally along with Chairman NDMA here at a news conference on Saturday.
She said that every disaster is also an opportunity for change and UN wanted to establish partnership and share the experience of mitigating the disaster risk. Margareta Wahlström appreciated initiative of the government of Pakistan to launch this campaign and said that the social impact of such initiatives goes beyond the effects of disasters.
She said that 900 cities across the world are participating in the campaign and sharing their experiences and expressed the hope that Pakistan would consider making substantial investment in disaster management. Chairman NDMA, Dr Zafar Qadir said that launching of this campaign in Pakistan will add a new chapter to the disaster management system to make our cities safer, resilient and livable in wake of disasters.
The International Conference on 'Building a local government alliance for disaster risk reduction organised by United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) on 11-13 August 2009 at Incheon (Korea), adopted the global campaign to make cities resilient against natural disasters.
At present, there are 629 cities and provinces in various countries joining the campaign. In many countries the campaign lunch was also organised at sub-national levels in addition to the national launches. For example, the state of Orissa in India, Province of Tyrol, Austria and all its 279 municipalities organised the launch at sub-national level.
The NDMA would be leading the campaign launched in Pakistan in collaboration with provincial Health and Education Departments. The campaign will focus on public awareness, emergency, disaster preparedness, and disaster risk reduction. The One Million Safe Schools and Hospitals campaign is a global advocacy initiative to make schools and hospitals safer in case of disasters.