 | Director-General SPEECHES | |
| FLASH INFO | |
| PRESS RELEASES | |
| MESSAGES | |
| UNESCO.ORG is also: | |
| | |
| | UNESCO’s Director-General Opens International Meeting on Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System
04-03-2005 - The Director-General, Mr Koïchiro Matsuura, yesterday opened, at UNESCO Headquarters, the “International Coordination Meeting for the Development of a Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System for the Indian Ocean within a Global Framework”. |
This meeting is the first in a series that will lead to establishing the technical and ‘legal’ framework for the establishment of the Indian Ocean System. UNESCO received a clear mandate from the international community to coordinate the establishment of the System during the course of several international and regional meetings, including the World Conference on Disaster Reduction (Kobe, Japan, 18 – 22 January 2005), and the Phuket Ministerial Meeting on Regional Cooperation on Tsunami Early Warning Arrangements (Phuket, Thailand, 28 and 29 January 2005).
In his opening address, Mr Matsuura indicated the outcomes that he hopes will emerge from the meeting. In particular, he mentioned the need to reach agreement on the basic design of the observation networks that will constitute the Indian Ocean System, including the designation by governments of the national agencies that will act as National Tsunami Warning Centres. He also indicated the need to identify the mechanism for the coordination of the required research for the assessment of the tsunami hazard, as well as to address the organizational aspects and governance mechanism(s) that will enable the joint operation of the detection/warning system, based on international cooperation with the aforementioned observation networks.
Mr Matsuura went on to situate the Indian Ocean System in the global context that lies at the core of UNESCO’s strategy for a tsunami warning system. He informed the audience that the Indian Ocean System is just “the first step in building a Global Tsunami Warning System [that will be] fully embedded in the [IOC] global, operational ocean observing system that is regularly used for other related hazards, such as storm surges and cyclones”. He also outlined the merits of this system being linked to the soon-to-be-established Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) that will aim at integrating space-based and ‘in situ’ observations covering the land, the ocean, the atmosphere and ecosystems. A group of nations have committed themselves to building GEOSS in the next ten years, following appeals to that effect at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg, 2002).
The International Coordination Meeting will build upon work that was begun in Kobe and continued in Phuket. Participants include decision-makers and scientific/technical experts from the 29 countries on the Indian Ocean rim, as well as Member States of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) in other regions, including those that have expressed their interest in contributing both financially and with technical expertise to the establishment of the Indian Ocean System.
|
Source |
Flash Info 037-2005
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
