VietNamNet Bridge – Businesses needed to take a proactive stance when it came to disaster prevention in order to reduce risks, besides the standard relief and support measures that are usually employed following a disaster, said Agriculture and Rural Development Deputy Minister Dao Xuan Hoc.

Attending a conference held yesterday, April 28, by the Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), Hoc said that the participation of the private sector was necessary and should be increased in a concerted effort with the Government, local and international organisations to respond to natural disasters.

"This is a key target for the country, to realise the Strategy on Natural Disaster Prevention, Response and Mitigation toward 2020 and the project to raise public awareness and community-based disaster risk management ," he said.

Under the 12-year project that started in 2009, VND989 billion (US$48 million) has been spent on improving people's awareness and ability to cope with disasters in the country's 6,000 most vulnerable communes.

Hoc said that businesses, as part of the community, should help localities to deal with disasters by disseminating information, building/upgrading warning and rescue facilities and contributing to relief work.

Pham Van Le from An Giang Province's Flood and Storm Prevention and Control Steering Committee said that since last year, the province had formed a co-operative framework with local businesses to boost people's awareness of natural disasters and ways to respond to them.

Local businesses provided notebooks for students containing information about natural disasters, he said, and other businesses sponsored a TV programme about precautionary measures that should be taken in the monsoon season.

Ngo Minh Duc, chairman of the provincial Business Association said local businesses understood that supporting the community was also a way of protecting their customers and ensuring stable production.

Dr Bhichit Rattakul, executive director of the Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC), said that because Viet Nam was located in a natural disaster prone area, it and other regional countries needed to put more efforts into strengthening multi-stockholder partnerships at various levels.

The sustainability of disaster risk reduction activities depended on the ability to achieve and maintain co-operation among stakeholders, including the corporate sector, he said.

ADPC and other organisations including the Disaster Management Centre, the Joint Advocacy Initiative and the European Commission for Humanitarian Aid had carried out public-private partnership initiatives in Viet Nam's Mekong Delta provinces, he said, adding that the initiatives need to be expanded.

Hoc said that as an organisation that represented the country's corporate sector, the VCCI had urged its members to join the Government in coping with natural disasters.

At the start of any project, businesses and companies needed to take into account the effects it would have on the environment and human life, he said.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News