As part of a regional effort to develop, implement, and conduct national and sub-national assessments focused on risk and vulnerability identification and existing disaster management capacity, several disaster management stakeholders of El Salvador are currently engaged in a bilateral National Disaster Preparedness Baseline Assessment (NDPBA). A concurrent NDPBA project is also underway in Peru, where a Mid-term Knowledge Exchange and the signing of two Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) has just been completed.
Since February of this year, Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) has been working closely with stakeholders in El Salvador on the NDPBA and are working on identifying areas throughout the country that are more or less prepared and capable of effectively responding to and recovering from disaster. Over the past week, August 24-29, PDC representatives Todd Bosse and Darron Pustam have been in El Salvador to work with stakeholders, gaining a more in-depth understanding of the environments in which hazard mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery take place. Through a series of working meetings and interviews, Bosse and Pustam are advancing data collection in partnership with Protección Civil, the lead national disaster management organization in El Salvador.
Additional coordination has taken place with the Ministry of Health; Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Information and Territorial Planning Division; Ministry of Public Works, Transport, Housing and Development; and Ministry of Economy, as well as with the United Nations.
Detailed discussions have addressed existing in-country methodologies and analysis requirements to support national and sub-national scales of the assessments. Over the next few months, PDC will amalgamate the valuable stakeholder information, continue stakeholder engagement, and use the feedback received to advance the agenda for a NDPBA Disaster Management Knowledge Exchange planned for October.
This engagement has been made possible with support and funding from the U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) and is part of a series of NDPBA’s occurring throughout the region intended to support effective decision making to enhance preparedness though response capacity and capability.
For more information on the El Salvador NDPBA activities:
• View the project flyer in english or spanish.