Last year, when speaking at this Commission, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) spoke of the profound interest we and our worldwide network of Red Cross / Red Crescent National Societies have in the vulnerability issues which surround the reduction of government expenditure on and involvement in health and social sectors.
This is true in an increasing number of countries, and our purpose was to draw attention to the simultaneous urgency of building the capacity of communities to share the burden which government withdrawal may create.
My purpose today is to show how the issue arises very directly in contexts beyond the normal scope of this Commission. And to show how it is one which needs to be mainstreamed into the thinking and planning of the United Nations family more broadly.
We also want to ensure that consideration of the implementation of the World Summit for Social Development needs to take account of the contributions communities themselves make to sustainable economic and social development.
The World Conference on Disaster Reduction (WCDR), which was held in Kobe, Hyogo (Japan) from 18 to 22 January this year emphasised disaster risk reduction and community resilience and the prominence they have in programmes to eradicate poverty and promote development.
There was a great deal of substantial exchange in plenary debates, parallel events, panels and workshops on the priority which all governments and their partners at national and international levels need to give to ensuring that communities are equipped to handle the multiple emergency responsibilities which arise when a disaster strikes.
Debate was reinforced by examples of suffering but also community courage from the Asian earthquakes and tsunamis of 26 December 2004, where thousands of our youth volunteers worked day and night to save lives.
The consequence, which we emphasise here in this Commission, is that the participants at the WCDR clearly recognised the importance of building local capacity so that it could work alongside government authorities in preparing for and responding to disasters. Taking it further, and directly into the agenda of this Commission, the WCDR Hyogo Declaration recognises the intrinsic relationship between disaster reduction, sustainable development and the eradication of poverty.
In other words, disaster reduction and preparedness needs to be fitted into development planning, both because of what it means for national and community development and because of the savings of life and property which good preparedness brings.
The Hyogo Declaration was very clear about this. The Hyogo Framework of Action, which was adopted at the Conference is even more specific, and includes a number of objectives, which should receive the attention of this Commission and all other relevant bodies in the UN system.
I won't go through them in detail in this intervention, but we will be bringing relevant paragraphs to attention in other Commissions and conferences with a view to promoting concrete action at ECOSOC. One example of a recommendation highly relevant to this Commission is a Key Activity relevant to volunteers and their contribution.
This activity, in paragraph 18 (ii) (l) of the Framework, contains the agreement of States to "promote community-based training initiatives considering the role of volunteers as appropriate to enhance local capacities to mitigate and cope with disasters".
This Activity and its setting in the WCDR Outcomes shows clearly to us another connection of relevance - that to the Millennium Development Goals. Our experience shows, for example, that all training initiatives need to be founded on much stronger attention to MDG 2 and Universal Primary Education.
They also depend on the utilisation of the full human resource base of the communities themselves, which means that there must be a parallel program of gender empowerment, and there must be no discrimination of any kind. And once more, the power, the creativity and the social engagement of the youth - and other groups - must be utilised.
This is why the outcome of the WCDR fits so well into programmes designed to implement the World Summit on Social Development.
Chair,
There is much more we could have said on this vital topic, but time does not permit. We close this statement with the hope that the political commitment necessary for the implementation of the Hyogo Declaration will be available.
This Commission provides one of the first opportunities for the UN to state that commitment, but we will be taking this message to all relevant Commissions. We also anticipate that many of our National Red Cross and Red Crescent Society members will bring this message to their Governments in the course of their normal dialogue as auxiliaries to their public authorities in the humanitarian field.