6 February 2015: The World Bank signed a three-year US$2.7 million grant agreement to finance the Community-Based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM) project along the Dili-Ainaro Road Corridor in Dili, Timor-Leste. Together with the National Disaster Management Agency (NEMA) and the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC), it also hosted a training programme on ‘Disaster Risk Reduction’ in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

The CBDRM project in Timor-Leste, fully funded by the Japan Policy and Human Resources Development Fund (PHRD), which is financed by the Government of Japan and managed by the World Bank, aims to increase the capacity of communities and local agencies along the Dili-Ainaro road corridor to help reduce the impacts of natural disasters, in particular recurring landslides and floods. According to the World Bank, the project’s objective is to improve the understanding and communication of landslide and flooding risks, and facilitate risk-informed planning and investment to reduce disaster impacts on local communities.

The project will: train officials and community members from approximately 26 sucos, or villages, on various aspects of community-based disaster risk management; prepare comprehensive suco-level disaster management plans; and pilot small-scale projects to reduce disaster risks in the sucos.

Part of a larger programme of the World Bank to support the Government of Mongolia in its efforts to mitigate and manage the impacts of natural disasters under the ‘Improving Disaster Risk Management’ project, the ‘Disaster Risk Reduction’ training programme, which took place from 3-6 February 2015, gathered over 30 participants from the NEMA, National Security Council, government agencies, and local administrations, who learnt about mainstreaming of disaster risk reduction (DRR) in development planning as a means to reduce disaster risks. The ‘Improving Disaster Risk Management’ project aims to transfer the understanding of risk reduction in order to develop coordination systems and build capacity across agencies and levels of government to better manage the risks associated with disasters, including the implementation of risk identification, risk reduction, emergency preparedness and financial resilience initiatives. [World Bank Press Release on Timor-Leste] [World Bank Press Release on Mongolia]