- Statements
H.E. Deputy Secretary General of the United Nation (Co-Host of the event);
Excellences all Ministers from all nations who present here today;
Distinguished Co-Chair, Government of Indonesia & UNDRR;
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Good Morning to you all,
First and foremost, it is a privilege and a great honor for me to be here, to address the 7th Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction on behalf of Democratic Republic of Timor Leste. I would like to take this opportunity to convey to all of you, a message of expectation and conviction of how to scale up disaster risk reduction and strengthen disaster risk governance by flourishing the importance of international solidarity and cooperation to tackle underlying risk drivers among all stakeholders towards the disaster resilience for sustainable development, social benefit to our citizens and serve the international community as a whole.
To begin with, I would sincerely like to extend warm greetings and appreciation to Co-Chair both Indonesia Government and UNDRR Secretariat for extending the invitation and all engaged entities who work hard to realize the 7th Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Bali –Indonesia.
As a young sovereign country, Timor Leste is a small island, located in between South East Asia and Pacific Ocean. Geographically, Timor-Leste is also situated in an area of high risk and vulnerable to natural disasters, being place in the Ring of Fire, with strong volcanic and seismic activity, to which are added to the natural risks resulting from climate change, such as floods, tsunamis, cyclones, landslides and prolonged droughts.Being a small developing state, does not hinder our dreams to have a strong political will and promote national consensus to work hard towards scaling up disaster risk reduction for sustainable development, assurance of peace, security and stability in order to ensure a standard quality of life for current and future generations. With respect to this proposed event, I would like take this opportunity to share a recent experience of devastating natural disaster phenomena of flooding and how we managed to handle by getting assistance from various entities such as UN Agencies, Diplomatic Corps, National & International NGOs and all private sectors.
Excellences, Distinguished Guess, Ladies & Gentlemen;
The recent natural disasters phenomena was the Cyclone SEROJA that hit Timor Leste on the 4thof April 2021.
Timor-Leste was hit by massive floods of March 2020 and April 2021 that affected a total of around 60,000 families and caused approximately US $500 million in damage. Furthermore, the worst fire in its history in six municipalities in the country, which affected almost 3,000(Three Thousand)families who lost their homes and crops destroyed and infrastructure were heavily damaged.
In order to reduce the risks of natural disasters and their effects, Timor-Leste adopted the international framework of SENDAI and be committed to have National Policy for Disaster Risk Management as per SENDAI Guiding principle. As such, Timor Leste is currently at the stage of developing its Civil Protection institution, which is intended to have standard legal instruments, well-trained and equipped human resources, and well functional facilities.
Meanwhile, we are also committed in having an investment for human capital development with better training and well equipped facilities, which include construction of the National Protection Building of Civil Protection, establishment of Fire Brigades in all Municipalities. As such, the institutional growth of the Civil Protection is well-integrated in terms of operational system and facilities in response to effective mitigation and prevention of any natural disaster or catastrophe.
We, at Civil Protection recognize that in responding to Natural disasters, we cannot perform as ‘one man standing’. To design and implement the national strategic programs of Civil Protection in response to natural disasters (in terms of Mitigation and Preventive action), it requires a collective effort from all relevant entities as per above mentioned.
By engaging all partners across all levels, from individuals to groups of organizations, National and International Agencies, Government to Diplomatic Corps, will be the only mechanism to ensure joint cooperation and responsibility.
Excellences, HonourableAmbassador, Distinguished Guess, Ladies and Gentlemen
To conclude, I would once again like to thank for your kind cooperation by giving the opportunity to share principal experience in thisInternational Global Platform for DRR and I genuinely look forward to your kind cooperation and contribution to support the good governance of institutional growth and the implementation of the strategic development plan in response to Mitigation and Preventive action for Natural disaster in Timor Leste in the future to come.
TERIMA KASIH ====== THANK YOU!