"Norway has taken the global challenges of climate change and disaster risk reduction very seriously" said Ambassador Ragne Birte Lund in her speech at the inauguration of the seminar. She emphasized Norway’s firm commitment and support towards climate change mitigation and adaptation as well.
The purpose of the seminar was to promote dialogue between decision makers and professionals about the theoretical and practical aspects and issues related to landslide hazard mitigation. The seminar represented an opportunity for international and regional experts to discuss and share views and experiences relating to landslide early warning in Bangladesh and other countries in the region. Bangladesh has already shown notable progress in managing disaster risk reduction and adaptation and therefore, it can offer a lot to the international community.
Bangladesh State Minister of the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources (MoPEMR) Brig. General (Rtd) Enamul Huq said that the country’s economic growth is being pulled back by the frequent calamities of natural disasters every year. The state minister Huq, who was attending the program as Chief Guest, thanked the Norwegian Government for its extended support to strengthening the capacity building on disaster mitigation and adaptation efforts in Bangladesh and in the region. It was expected that Norway’s efforts will further strengthen regional partnerships dealing with emergencies and thus shall help to prevent humanitarian crises by reducing disaster risk regionally and globally.
Mr Mohammad Mejbahuddin, Secretary of the Ministry (MoPEMR), Ms Moonira Aktar Chowdhury, Director General of GSB, Mr Arambepola, Director ADPC, Mr Oddvar Kjekstad of NGI and Mr Reshad Ekram, GSB-NGI Project Director also spoke at the ceremony.
The seminar was jointly organized by the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) in association with Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC), Thailand and Geological Survey of Bangladesh (GSB). The regional seminar which lasted for 3 days formed a part of a 4 years program (RECLAIM) supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is being implemented in 11 countries namely Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Thailand, Myanmar, Philippines, Vietnam and China, which are among the most disaster risk prone areas of the world. The seminar had participation of experts (geologists, meteorologists, geo-environmental engineers, academicians, etc.) representing all the above-mentioned countries along with experts from the RECLAIM project technical partners: NGI and ADPC.