International Symposium "Worldwide disaster prevention – awareness is the key"Being a strong partner for people at risk is the Munich Re Foundation's aspiration and challenge. Only if the concept of risk partnership is filled with life and commitment can we expect to see future successes in the complex field of disaster prevention.In January 2005, the second World Conference on Disaster Reduction (WCDR) took place in Kobe, Japan (the first one had been held in 1995). More than 3,000 delegates from 120 countries discussed how to optimize disaster management worldwide. The conference was influenced by the tsunami tragedy in the Indian Ocean, which claimed more than 200,000 lives. Even after the WCDR, however, important questions remained open. Are the current global initiatives for disaster prevention adequate? Is the desire for disaster management and financial security systems such as insurance sufficiently pronounced in the developing countries and is it sustainable at all levels? Some other unanswered questions were: What part do multilateral banks such as the development banks or World Bank play and what role do insurance and reinsurance companies have? Are their programs adequately tailored to the countries concerned, especially the developing countries, which often tend to be seriously affected? And: The tsunami disaster of 26 December 2004 - also the outstanding humanitarian catastrophe during the landfall of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in August 2005 - demonstrated dramatically that risk awareness and prevention is a key issue in the complex field of risk prevention. If people in the affected areas had known more about tsunamis and the flood risk, thousands of lives would have been saved. One objective of the Munich Re Foundation is to support people in risk situations. Awareness is the key to improving disaster prevention. Therefore awareness will be one of the central issues addressed in this symposium. The Munich Re Foundation will take up the above-mentioned issues in the area of natural catastrophes. There will be an open dialogue between representatives and experts from the fields of politics, economics and science at the major “risk symposium” to be held in Hohenkammer on 16 and 17 November 2005. The outcome will be a state-of-the-art overview on the needs, existing disaster risk prevention strategies and supporting products of the financial sector. The goal is to identify the degree of awareness existing and to describe the most important next steps for optimizing tailor-made disaster prevention. Format: 2-day symposium with high-level panel and press conference
Date: 16/17 November 2005
Location: Hohenkammer/Munich, Bavaria, Germany |