ブックタイトルRecommendations to prepare for future mega-disasters in Japan

概要

Recommendations to prepare for future mega-disasters in Japan

PrefaceGiven its geographic, topographic, meteorological and various other conditions, Japan is acountry prone to natural disasters, such as earthquakes, volcanic explosions, typhoons,torrential rain and heavy snow. Up to the 1950s, large-scale earthquakes and typhoons hadfrequently caused thousands of casualties. In recent years, the Government of Japan hasstriven to develop and strengthen its disaster-management system, promote national landconservation, improve the accuracy of its meteorological forecasting, and upgrade emergencycommunications. Accordingly, Japan has successfully alleviated its vulnerability to naturaldisasters, enhanced its disaster-response capacity, and achieved a reduction in the loss anddamage caused by natural disasters. This could be attributable to a decentralizeddisaster-response system, in which local authorities have been carefully committed toimproving preparedness at each stage of the disaster-management cycle.Nevertheless, the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011 featured a combination of anearthquake, tsunami, and nuclear power-plant accidents, constituting a large-scale complexdisaster on an unprecedented scale for Japan. Some local authorities in the disaster-affectedareas were temporarily unable to function and the disaster caused widespread damage, whichhindered efforts to immediately determine the overview of needs for assistance and smoothlyutilize domestic and incoming international assistance.Reviewing the experience, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the UnitedNations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Japanese RedCross Society (JRCS) jointly organised a Public Seminar on International HumanitarianAssistance on July 5, 2012 at the Hiroo Campus of the Japanese Red Cross College of Nursing inTokyo. The seminar began with a keynote speech made by the head of the OCHA New YorkHeadquarters concerning issues in international humanitarian assistance, which was followedby lectures by officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (MOFA) and JICA on Japan’sinitiatives for international emergency relief and humanitarian assistance. The following paneldiscussion was held by representatives of the Cabinet Office, JRCS, the Japan BusinessFederation (Keidanren), Japan Platform (JPF) and the OCHA Kobe Office. The facilitator wasserved by the Director General of the Secretariat of Japan Disaster Relief Team (JDR) of JICA atthe time of the GEJE. At the seminar, practitioners exchanged frank views and opinionsconcerning (1) issues arising and lessons learnt from coordination among the related parties inhow to accept incoming international assistance and assistance for populations affected by theGEJE; and (2) how to utilise the experience of the earthquake for future internationalhumanitarian assistance. In particular, the participants recognised quite a few underlyingissues common to international humanitarian assistance and the domestic responses to theGEJE; and the importance of parties engaging in disaster response and humanitarian assistance,both domestically and overseas, sharing their experiences and strengths and taking theinitiative to engage in specific actions to improve the domestic and international disasterresponse. Asked to deliver closing remarks, I proposed that we should not leave the seminar asa one-off event but establish a study group to continue and deepen these discussions based onthe achievements of the seminar 1 . Following my proposal, a study group of the Great EastJapan Earthquake and International Humanitarian Relief was established hosted by theJapanese Red Cross Institute for Humanitarian Studies and voluntarily joined by various1 For the reports delivered in the seminar, visit the website:http://www.jica.go.jp/topics/news/2012/20120720_01.html (in Japanese.)1