Secretary, Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights at the opening of the National Symposium on "Promoting Knowledge Transfer to Strengthen Disaster Risk Reduction & Climate Change Adaptation"

I am delighted, on behalf of the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights, to welcome all of you to this National Symposium on Promoting Knowledge Transfer to strengthen Disaster Risk Reduction & Climate Change Adaptation. Many of you are of course our partners in this venture, though that makes us more rather than less grateful. I should however specially welcome His Excellency Mr Mahbub uzaman, High Commissioner for Bangladesh, who has been so keenly concerned

The downpour received in the Dikwella Divisional Secretariat, Matara district on 20/10/2008 was not just another rain. It created a sudden flood situation flooding approximately 25 houses in the Kottagoda Grama Seva Division, Dikwella. The floods which increased up to 1.5 - 2.5ft disrupted the day-to-day lives of the community while damaging their household equipment including furniture and electrical goods. The floods also destroyed the paddy crops in the area.

It was understood that the village would have to face similar catastrophe in future had the close by lagoon canal remained filled with mud. Hence, steps were taken to clean the canal by removing the mud in the canel to fac

A training programme on "Project Monitoring and Evaluation" was conducted for officers of the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights, Department of meteorology, Disaster Management Center and National Building research organization, from 25th June to 27th June, 2009 at Sri Lanka Foundation Institute (SLFI). It was a residential training programme, sponsored by the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF). Main objective of this training programme was toenhance project monitoring capacity for project management staff. These officials were able to obtain skills on result based monitoring...............................................................

Address by Mahinda Samarasinghe MP

Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights

at the

Second Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction

Geneva, Switzerland

17 June 2009

Mr Chairman,

Workshop on Policy Framework pertaining to Landslide affected communities in Sri Lanka was held on 11th June 2009 at Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research Institute, Colombo. The workshop was organized by the Disaster Management Centre in collaboration with the Asia Foundation.

In Sri Lanka, the Central Hill country is more prone to landslide disasters and the intensity of occurring landslides has been increased during past two decades. It has been observed that the human intervention such as unplanned development activities and inadequate attention to technical aspects of construction in landslide prone areas have aggravate the severity and frequency of landslides. The Technology