19 February 2016 – “Engaging the local communities in monitoring hazards and risks and strengthening partnerships, at the local, national and international levels, lead to significant gains in understanding, monitoring and managing disaster risks.”

This is what the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) Director Renato Solidum emphasized in his presentation during the first UNISDR Science and Technology Conference recently held in Geneva to discuss how science and technology could help achieve the goals of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030.

“Local actors should be involved in the development of risk assessment tools and in monitoring disaster risks in their communities,” he added.

In his presentation, Dr. Solidum also highlighted what PHIVOLCS is doing in understanding, monitoring and warning about disaster risk. He said that the Philippines has started to create and use applications (both web and mobile apps) to monitor and warn about disaster risk. In particular, PHIVOLCS has created the Fault Finder mobile app that helps determine the distance of houses and their position to the nearest earthquake fault. The application aims to help people identify safe areas to build structures.

During the Conference held from January 27 to 29, more than 700 scientists, policy makers and disaster risk experts gathered and endorsed the UNISDR Science and Technology Roadmap that hopes to define the expected outcomes of the science and technology work under each of the priority areas of action in the Framework and the ways to monitor progress and needs.

More information about the Conference can be found here:   http://www.unisdr.org/partners/academia-research/conference/2016/. END