International exchange of expertise

A wide range of mitigation actions are available. Some have been successfully implemented in one location and the experience may be useful to others. Others may have been unsuccessful and the lessons from the failure are also important to other communities considering similar plans. Lessons of one country's building upgrading program to reduce earthquake risk may be of considerable interest to a large number of other countries. Techniques developed in another country for community involvement in flood protection may be directly usable in another.

The science of disaster mitigation is still at an early state of development and many techniques are being implemented or experimented with independently. The connection and transfer of experience from one location to another will help the implementation of effective mitigation techniques.

The rapidly developing science of hazard assessment; the earth sciences, meteorology, instrumentation advances and detection and prediction techniques are an important part of the international sharing of knowledge. Training, international scholarships, conference support, knowledge transfer in all its various forms is an important part of developing disaster mitigation expertise.

The role of DHA and other UN bodies in facilitating international exchange of expertise is summarized in Annex 1.