Consultative meeting for Asian parliamentarians on

PIA Press Release
2010/11/26

Consultative meeting for Asian parliamentarians on

Manila (26 November) -- The three-day Consultative Meeting for Asian Parliamentarians with the theme "Disaster Risk Reduction: an instrument for Achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) opened today with Senator Loren Legarda giving the opening statement.

Legarda, who is the Chairman of the Senate Committees on Foreign Relations and Climate Change said lawmakers have the mandate to introduce change and to ensure that it happens by: (1) Creating the enabling policy environment for effective disaster risk reduction;

(2) Urging their respective governments to develop risk reduction strategies supportive of national development agenda; and (3) Laying the foundation for increased investment in risk reduction in order to safeguard development gains.

Legislators from the Philippines, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, and Nepal are participating in the conference, which was organized in cooperation with the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) and the Asian Network of Parliamentarians for Population and Development.

Aside from Legarda, other special guests include Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Alberto Romulo, Mr. Shiv Khare of the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians for Population and Development, and Madame Margareta Wahlström, the United Nations Secretary General's Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction. (PIA)