ADRC Annual Report No.5 (2002)

2. Establishment of Network in the Asian Region

2-3. Asian Disaster Reduction and Response Network(ADRRN)
2-3-1. BackgroundToday, NGOs play an important role in disaster response and reduction in Asia, as well as
governments and international organizations do. NGOs have specifically focused on providing
humanitarian aid to disaster victims. In addition to the activities, they recently play a significant
role in emergency response and rehabilitation, and even in disaster preparedness, such as
education and awareness activities at normal times. These activities assume significance inview of their wider and closer engagement with grassroots communities. However, thechallenge still remains: to enhance the capacity and to cooperate with other organizations forincreasing the efficiency.
Asian Disaster Reduction Center (ADRC) organized “the Regional Workshop on
Networking and Collaboration among Non-Governmental Organizations of Asian Countries inDisaster Reduction and Response" on 20-22 February 2002 in Kobe, Japan. The workshop
aimed at providing a forum for sharing views and experiences and for discussing the rationale,strategies and priority actions for fostering and facilitating networking and collaboration among
NGOs at the regional and local levels, and gathered 35 participants from disaster-related NGOs
in 16 Asian countries. The participants of the workshop, recognizing the important role playedby NGOs, agreed on a number of steps aimed at promoting and strengthening networking andcollaboration among them in Asia in disaster reduction and response, among others, thecreation of a network to achieve the goal. The network was named “Asian Disaster Reductionand Response Network (ADRRN)” with the consensus of the participants at the workshop.
In this context, the participating NGOs are encouraged to develop and share a directory of allNGOs within their own country, which includes information on contact points, resources,capacity, and disaster reduction and response activities. It was also agreed that ADRC develop
an electronic forum for the NGOs that will facilitate to provide information and to freely
exchange ideas and experiences.

2-3-2. ADRRN Web ForumIn cooperation with OCHA Kobe
(co-sponsor of the workshop), ADRC
added a database page on the ADRC
website to promote ADRRN activities
in January 2003.
Based on the data provided by eachNGO, the ADRRN database provides
information on the organizations,disaster reduction activities and event
plans of each NGO. The member
NGOs are provided with an ID andpassword to access these pages, andcan update their information on thewebsite as necessary. In addition, theelectronic bulletin board page in thedatabase facilitates free discussions
Fig. 2-3-2-1 ADRRN web forum, top pageand Q&As on information notavailable from other ADRRN database pages.
With the completion of the framework of the ADRRN web forum database this year, thecontents of the database will be upgraded to further strengthen proactive cooperation,
information exchange and experience sharing among the NGOs in the near future.

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ADRC Annual Report No.5 (2002)

2. Establishment of Network in the Asian Region

Contents
1. Information on Disaster Reduction /Mitigation /Preparedness
2. Information on Capacity Building /Training
3. Information on Disaster Response /Relief Assistance
4. ADRRN Partners
5. Forthcoming Events of ADRRN NGOs
6. ADRRN Forum
7. Links
Fig. 2-3-2-2 The contents of ADRRN web forum

Fig. 2-3-2-3 ADRRN web forum, partner list

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