PHNOM PENH, April 20 (Xinhua) -- Margareta Wahlstrom, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General for Disaster Risk Reduction, will arrive in Cambodia on Friday night for a six-day visit to discuss ways to better protect Cambodian communities against weather related disasters.
According to a press release from the United Nations Development Program-Cambodia on Friday, during the visit, she will highlight the importance of integrating disaster risk reduction in development programs to adapt to climate change impacts.
The press release said flooding is a recurrent damaging event in Cambodia and may even be worse in the future as experts predict more severe and frequent floods and storms due to climate change impacts. It said last year, more than 247 people died and 1.64 million people were affected by flooding, 700,000 of them were children.
The floods also took an economic toll on the country, impacting more than 1 million acres of rice paddy in Kampong Thom, Battambang, and Prey Veng provinces.
The UN head of disaster risk reduction will visit Prey Veng province, where more than 40,600 households were affected by the floods in 2011. The highest number of deaths (52) occurred in Prey Veng province due to the floods and almost 50,000 hectares of rice were destroyed.
She is scheduled to meet with secretary of state at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Ouch Borith; Vice Chairman of the Cambodia National Committee for Disaster Management Nhim Vanda; Minister of Environment Mok Mareth and other government officials and development partners.
In her meetings with senior officials, she will discuss opportunities to further integrated disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation measures in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) political and economic cooperation agendas as ASEAN is currently chaired by Cambodia.
She will propose to the government of Cambodia to convene an ASEAN leader dialogue on disaster risk reduction and lead the post 2015 Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) discussions in ASEAN and the implementation of a new Asian Disaster Management and Emergency Response (ADMER) after 2015, said the press release.
According to a press release from the United Nations Development Program-Cambodia on Friday, during the visit, she will highlight the importance of integrating disaster risk reduction in development programs to adapt to climate change impacts.
The press release said flooding is a recurrent damaging event in Cambodia and may even be worse in the future as experts predict more severe and frequent floods and storms due to climate change impacts. It said last year, more than 247 people died and 1.64 million people were affected by flooding, 700,000 of them were children.
The floods also took an economic toll on the country, impacting more than 1 million acres of rice paddy in Kampong Thom, Battambang, and Prey Veng provinces.
The UN head of disaster risk reduction will visit Prey Veng province, where more than 40,600 households were affected by the floods in 2011. The highest number of deaths (52) occurred in Prey Veng province due to the floods and almost 50,000 hectares of rice were destroyed.
She is scheduled to meet with secretary of state at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Ouch Borith; Vice Chairman of the Cambodia National Committee for Disaster Management Nhim Vanda; Minister of Environment Mok Mareth and other government officials and development partners.
In her meetings with senior officials, she will discuss opportunities to further integrated disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation measures in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) political and economic cooperation agendas as ASEAN is currently chaired by Cambodia.
She will propose to the government of Cambodia to convene an ASEAN leader dialogue on disaster risk reduction and lead the post 2015 Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) discussions in ASEAN and the implementation of a new Asian Disaster Management and Emergency Response (ADMER) after 2015, said the press release.
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