13 Nov 2018 - “Urban Resilience and Habitat Improvement, Disaster Risk Management and Built Environment” workshop in Tehran
- Published in Other
“Urban Resilience and Habitat Improvement, Disaster Risk Management and Built Environment” workshop for urban managers and decision makers within the framework of UN-Habitat Afghanistan’s “Project for City Resilience (PCR)” began on 11 November 2018 at the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) Secretariat in Tehran, Iran. This workshop is co-hosted and supported by the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) Secretariat and the UN-Habitat Offices in Kabul and Tehran. The participants of this workshop are a delegations of Afghanistan officials and experts as well as a number of executives and experts from the governmental organizations of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In the course of this four-day workshop, participants will become familiar with issues such as urban resilience and habitat improvements, disaster risk management and built environment, earthquake risk management, land management, urban regeneration, and upgrading informal settlements. The participants will engage in collective learning by conducting bilateral talks and presenting their personal experiences. At the end of the course, a field visit to Urban Regeneration projects in central Tehran is planned for the Afghanistan delegation.
"The Project for City Resilience (PCR)” is implemented by the UN-Habitat Afghanistan with financial support from the Government of Japan, with the technical assistance of the UN-Habitat Office in Tehran in cooperation with the State Minister for Disaster Management and Humanitarian Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Two technical workshop and technical consultations have already been held in Kabul.
At the opening ceremony of this four-day workshop, Ambassador Mr. Hüseyin Avni Bıçaklı, Deputy Secretary General of ECO introduced the ECO Organization and its activities in the field of Disaster Risk Management (DRM) and its cooperation with the United Nations system including UN-Habitat and UNESCO, and defined the ECO priorities in this area. In his keynote speech Mr. Siamak Moghaddam, Chief of UN-Habitat Tehran Office a.i. welcomed the participants and expressed his gratitude to the head of Afghanistan delegation, Mr. Haidari, Deputy Minister of State Ministry for Disaster Management and Humanitarian affairs of Afghanistan, for providing the opportunity for UN-Habitat Offices in both countries (Iran and Afghanistan) to co-operate within the framework of Afghanistan’s “Project for City Resilience (PCR)”. He pointed out to the importance of issues such as Urban Resilience and Disaster Risk Management for UN-Habitat in documents such as the New Urban Agenda (NUA), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, and emphasized on the importance of these issues for UN-Habitat. He added that the cooperation between the experts of both countries and the UN-Habitat Offices in Afghanistan and Iran under Afghanistan’s “Project for City Resilience (PCR)” is also important from the UN’s perspective of South-South cooperation.
Mr. Ahmad Sadeghi, Head of Tehran Disaster Mitigation and Management Organization, then introduced and outlined the activities of his organization and measures taken in Tehran in order to mitigate the risks of disasters in the city. At the end of the opening ceremony, Mr. Mohammad Qassem Haidari, Deputy Minister of Policy, Coordination and Planning Department of State Minister for Disaster Management and Humanitarian Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, explicated the practices of the government of Afghanistan in Disaster Risk Reduction and the Afghanistan’s “Project for City Resilience (PCR)”.
This meeting was attended by representatives from UN-Habitat Office in Iran and Afghanistan; ECO Secretariat; Kabul Municipality; Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority (ANDMA); Deputy Ministry of Municipalities (DMM) of Afghanistan; the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Housing Foundation of the Islamic Revolution; Ministry of Road and Urban Development; Tehran Province Water and Wastewater Company; Afghanistan Ministry of Urban Development and Housing (MUDH); Department of Climate Change and Health; Institute of Environment Research; Tehran University of Medical Science; Municipality of Tehran; Embassy of the Republic of Tajikistan in Iran; the Asian and Pacific Centre for the Development of Disaster Information Management (APDIM) and UNESCO Office in Iran. The majority of the participants who attended the opening session will take part in the four-day workshop.
