Kathmandu, June 1

The Ministry of Home Affairs has initiated the establishment of a Disaster Information Management System that will serve as a repository of data, information, policies, and key decisions on disaster risk reduction and management in the country.

According to ‘National Position Paper on Disaster Risk Reduction and Management’ recently presented by the MoHA in Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction-2019, held in Geneva, the DIMS will serve as the common sharing platform for the purpose of disaster risk reduction and management. “It serves as a platform for fostering data partnership on disaster management and a common system for disaster management at multiple tiers of the government and stakeholders. A strong linkage will be established among the institutions/ agencies involved in forecasting, managing and assessing risks and responses,” it read.

DIMS will have its own server to collect data on disaster loss and damage and to provide support for disaster preparedness and response, during emergencies.

“DIMS will be hosted by the National Emergency Operation Centre at the MoHA. The database provides real time data about the hazards and disaster events, affected population and casualty. It also provides data of the local levels and their status of disaster preparedness,” the report said. Furthermore, the DIMS provides the mapping of organisations working at local levels and their initiatives.

All local levels will have access to DIMS to update and provide disaster data relevant information from the field, which can be directly fed into the system.

The report also said capacity building programmes for local governments were in progress, in the area of disaster risk reduction and management.

Development partners and humanitarian organisations are also working on resilience building through capacity building programme to mainstream disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation into development planning.

According to the report, the government is promoting public-private partnership to attract participation and investment of private sector in disaster risk insurance and risk sharing programmes, which have been included in the mid-term plan of national strategic action plan.