Event Summary
Organization: Disaster Risk Management Hub Tokyo - GFDRR, World Bank Group
Description
Do you know when the last major earthquake was in the community you live or work? Do you know the tsunami, earthquake or landslide risks in your local area? Unfortunately, many communities around the world do not have readily accessible information to help answer these important questions, and take action to reduce risks.
This session presented recent guidance material providing step-by-step support for local government and communities to prepare seismic hazard maps. The session introduced not only on the technical aspects but also how they are institutionalized, funded and how the information is used by the communities. The session also showcased examples of innovative communities that have completed seismic hazard maps and used them to drive informed action and communication with their experiences preparing hazard maps and the challenges that communities face in making them accessible and relevant for residents.
At the end of the session, we engaged the participants in a fun exercise to test out voluntarily developed community hazard mapping tool called Nigechizu. The tool was developed by Nikken Sekkei, an architecture firm, and some students from Tohoku, affected region of the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011.
Presentations
Earthquake hazard mapping for community resilience in Japan – Yoshitaka Yamasaki, OYO International and Keiko Saito, GFDRR
Empowering Indigenous Women Groups through Community Hazard Mapping – María Teresa Rodríguez-Blandon, Director, Fundación Guatemala
Women Groups as change makers: Grassroots approach for Community Risk Mapping – Prema Gopalan, Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP), India
Elderly leading resilient community – Emi Kiyota, President, Ibasho
Group Exercise: Hazard Mapping and Evacuation Planning – Nigechizu, Nikken Sekkei Volunteer Team
Moderator
Keiko Sakoda Kaneda, Disaster Risk Management Specialist, Disaster Risk Management Hub, Tokyo, Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), World Bank Group
Speaker bios
Keiko Saito Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Specialist at the GFDRR. She is a member of the Innovation Labs team, specializing in the application of geospatial data for disaster risk management. She brings with her more than 10 years of experience in this field. Her current primary focus is the standardization and mainstreaming of the use of remotely sensed data and other geospatial tools for effective risk assessment and management throughout the disaster cycle from preparedness through to recovery and reconstruction.
Yoshitaka Yamazaki is Manager at Earthquake Disaster Management Department in OYO International Corporation. He has been working on DRM projects focusing on seismic risk in many developing countries over the past 17 years. He has extensive experiences in DRM planning and capacity development of national and local governments in various countries.
Prema Gopalan is the Founder and Executive Director of Swayam Shikshan Prayog (Self Education for Empowerment), a learning and development organization working in 16 districts across four states in India for empowering grassroots women as social and environment leaders and entrepreneurs so they can take a lead in bringing their communities from margin to mainstream. She has worked on disaster management since SSP was community participation consultant to the state government’s Maharashtra Emergency Earthquake Rehabilitation Program (1993-1997) sponsored by the World Bank. Since then she has led large- scale programs on post-disaster recovery and DRR in several provinces. Her focus on enhancing women’s leadership in resilient development, has led to nurturing community based financial mechanisms and partnerships that strengthen livelihoods in the face of disaster.
María Teresa Rodríguez-Blandon is the Director of Fundación Guatemala, founder of the Women and Peace Network as a member of the Huairou Com- mission and National Facilitator of the Community Practitioners Platform for Resilience in the country. She leads the process of Certification of Grassroots Women Leaders as Development Agents for DRR with the National Disaster Management Agency (CONRED). Ms. Rodríguez-Blandon worked for 15 years directly with grassroots women’s movements struggling for land rights and women’s rights. María was the team leader of the “National Coordination for the Right to Land and Property” creating the first formal partnership between the Land Fund of Guatemala and the grassroots women leaders to influence equitable distribution of land for women. She introduced the “Safer Cities for Women and Girls Program” to Guatemala as a member of Women and Habitat Network of Latin America also member of Huairou Commission and recently she did the coordination for the special program of training grassroots women in the use of GPS for DRR purposes with the Ministry of Agriculture in Guatemala.
Emi Kiyota, President, Ibasho. Emi Kiyota has focused her career on improving both the built environment and organizational culture of long term care for elders as an environmental gerontologist. Inspired by living with elders in a nursing home during her graduate studies, she provides expert advice on designing age-friendly housing, hospitals, and clinical-care centers in the United States, Europe, Asia and Africa and is a frequent speaker on these issues at international gatherings of practitioners and academics. Originally from Japan, in 2010, she founded Ibasho, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable communities that value their elders, embodying the Japanese concept of “a place where one feels at home being oneself.“ Working with local elders, she facilitated the first innovative “Ibasho Cafe” in Ofunato, Japan, in the wake of the Great Tsunami, and is replicating this initiative in the Philippines and Nepal. She currently serves as the organization’s president and CEO. She also received a Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard University in 2016, and Residency Fellowship at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center in 2012.
Keiko Sakoda Kaneda is a Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Specialist at the GFDRR DRM Hub Tokyo. She works on management of technical assistance grant portfolio, and supports connecting Japanese relevant experience with the Bank’s operational teams for mainstreaming DRM in various sectors. She brings solid operational experience in post-disaster/conflict reconstruction, disaster preparedness, climate change adaptation and urban development from nearly 10 years of experience. She has focused experience in post-disaster/conflict housing reconstruction across regions.
