Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak at this important event on behalf of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
We took part in the Bishkek Mountains Summit five years ago, and were impressed with the dedication shown by governmental and other participants to addressing the particular vulnerability of people living in mountain environments.
Since then, however, there have been a number of events which underline the need to prioritise the situation of people living in mountain environments. I will return to this subject later in this statement.
We had several objectives in 2002 which are equally relevant now.
We wanted, as mentioned, to stress the vulnerability of people living in mountain environments. The environments are usually remote. The people are cut off from many of the health, education, economic and other systems which function in their countries.
Access to them in time of need is difficult, and if the country is itself struggling to achieve economic and social development the situation of the people living in mountainous areas is even more precarious.
This is, of course, critical to priorities in the fields of primary health care and disaster risk reduction.
At the same time, we recognise the incredible resilience of mountain people, and their ability to get things done in circumstances which would be beyond the imagination of others. This also applies particularly to women, whose contribution to relief and recovery is central to success.
We saw this illustrated graphically during and after the earthquake which struck North-West Frontier Province and Pakistan-Administered-Kashmir in October 2005. I do not need to remind delegates that this event caused a very high loss of life while at the same time destroying the livelihood of millions of people.
Because it struck in a mountainous region, access for humanitarian assistance was not possible through what might be described as normal means of transport. It required the mobilisation of massive relief supplies and a huge logistics operation. It needed intense coordination support to ensure that it ran as smoothly as possible.
Our achievements in these circumstances depended heavily on the presence in all affected localities of the trained volunteers of the Pakistan Red Crescent Society. Volunteers are an essential component in any disaster situation, but their presence is even more important when the affected localities are remote or beyond normal access possibilities.
IFRC places special emphasis on ensuring that local volunteers are well prepared for disasters and similar emergencies. Our programs in this area are particularly suitable for mountain communities where access is difficult, and are essential to any sustainability actions which drive to help communities help themselves.
Our experience in the IFRC shows that in any disaster situation, the needs of people in mountainous regions are much more difficult to meet, and that recovery is a special challenge as well. It usually takes much longer to restore access to regions affected by disasters, and much longer to restore the livelihoods of the people in those regions.
This has a further impact, contributing to the emigration of people and consequent problems for them in many other senses. The result, usually, is that the working generation leaves looking for work elsewhere, leaving behind the elderly and the very young and hence sharply increasing the vulnerability profile.
From all this experience, we believe that this Bishkek +5 conference should also give attention to the special vulnerability to disasters of people living in mountainous regions. This should include a high priority for capacity-building support for mountain populations.
We hope this will be one of the outcomes of this conference, and would look forward to bringing the experience of our National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to assist further work. Best case examples would include such Societies as the Tajikistan Red Crescent, which has done a lot of valuable work with mountain communities in this regard.
The other thematic area which we consider important is the relevance of mountains to the current international engagement with climate change.
In 2002, one of the issues of concern to the IFRC and other delegates was the need to ensure that mountains were properly respected for their place in the supply of water to urban populations and for agriculture.
Since then, much has been written about mountains as one of the environments most threatened by climate change and global warming.
The impacts are visible all over the world, in the melting of glaciers, the loss of traditional agriculture and living systems, and the introduction of diseases which in the past did not circulate in the colder weather found in mountain environments.
The IFRC took these issues into account during the recent 30th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, at which a Declaration, entitled “Together for Humanity” was adopted by 194 Governments and 186 Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies sitting together as equal partners.
In that Declaration, participants committed themselves to working together to raise awareness about the serious concerns raised by such factors as environmental degradation including climate change. Among the issues noted in the Declaration are the contribution these changes make to poverty, migration, health risks and an aggravated risk of violence and conflict.
The Declaration also delivers a strong commitment to adaptation to climate change, and the integration of adaptation in disaster risk reduction and disaster management policies and plans. This was accompanied by an undertaking to mobilise the human and financial resources required, with a special priority to actions for the most vulnerable people.
It is our hope that this conference will recognise the same threats, and share the commitment to establishing partnerships which effectively address the threats.
The conclusion of the Red Cross Red Crescent Conference was that the challenges are beyond the capacity of any one stakeholder, and that partnerships are essential.
Chair, The points just made have a worldwide relevance. I would not, however, want delegates to think that the IFRC and its National Society members are only now starting to address these issues.
Our programming and actions are rooted in the needs of the most vulnerable, and so the needs of people in mountain environments are very much part of what we do.
I will illustrate the point with some notations relevant to Kyrgyzstan and neighbouring countries.
• Our programming follows a track set by the IFRC’s Strategy 2010, which has a concentration on issues of direct concern to mountain people through the priority it gives to areas such as disaster preparedness, disaster response, health and care and local-capacity-building.
• The IFRC’s Global Agenda for the period to 2010 emphasises this strategic approach, and encourages alliances and partnerships to fulfil it, with sufficient resources.
• IFRC’s community based approach to risk reduction and disaster preparedness, as well as to adaptation to climate change, fits very well into programming for mountain regions.
• We seek government readiness to involve affected people in the design, implementation and monitoring of programming done for their benefit. This is particularly important in work for mountain communities, as their special needs are usually not obvious to people in capital city urban environments.
• Our National Societies in this Central Asian region have built migration and the other issues mentioned above into their own planning processes. Issues like homelessness after a disaster and the long time it can take to put new structures in place in remote regions have made this a special need.
• Planning work has produced a Regional Contingency Plan covering the five Central Asian National Societies. The plan is supported by, among others, ECHO, UNHCR and OCHA, and this year it was successfully tested in Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.
• All this work is done with regard to the contribution it makes to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. I have already noted the place of poverty in the vulnerability cycle endured by mountain people, and the livelihoods component of our work in mountain environments presents an approach to this element as well.
But I must say a little more about Kyrgyzstan. After all, Kyrgyzstan is 98% mountains and also heavily and regularly affected by earthquakes. 60% of the population is assessed as living in housing vulnerable to earthquakes. Additional problems associated with poverty have also hit Kyrgyzstan hard, particularly because of the need to bring services and support to the mountain populations.
The Kyrgyzstan Red Crescent Society has many programs which seek to address these special needs. Good support has been received from other National Societies, particularly those of the Netherlands and others through the IFRC Appeal. There has also been valuable support to such programs as the Seismic Safety Initiative by the Swiss Agency for International Development and Cooperation.
Chair, It is our hope that this conference will lead to better integrated programming in support of people vulnerable because of their mountain livelihoods. It is equally important to recognise the vital part mountains play in providing life and livelihoods to people living, drinking, eating and working in the flat land below.
We congratulate the UN system and the Government of Kyrgyzstan for convening this Conference, and look forward to contributing more on the needs and priorities of the vulnerable people themselves in the future.