Remarks at Status of Early Warning System in Lao PDR

Remarks by Bakhodir Burkhanov, UN Resident Coordinator

Thursday, 25 January 2024, 08:30

Crowne Plaza Vientiane, Lao PDR

Your Excellency Mr. Boualapoha Chanthanet, Vice Minister, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment

Mr. Gerard Howe, Chair of the Climate Risks and Early Warning Systems (CREWS) Initiative

Representatives from Government Ministries of MONRE and MOLSW

CREWS Members, Observers, Trustees and Secretariat

Ladies and gentlemen:

I am pleased to welcome you all to today’s meeting along with my co-chairs. A warm welcome especially to Mr. Gerard Howe and members of the CREWS delegation who are joining us here today. Let me also welcome colleagues from the World Meteorological Organisation, the World Bank and the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, who have travelled to Laos for this meeting and the National Steering Committee meeting that will follow.

Today’s deliberations are timely – and indeed welcome – as we have worked over the past six months with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare and partners in this room to develop a roadmap for Early Warning for All. As you are aware, Lao PDR was selected as one of the 30 pilot countries under the Secretary General’s EW4ALL initiative in March of last year.

We are now at a stage where the EW4ALL roadmap for 2023-2027 is nearly final. Through intensive consultations involving many stakeholders, the roadmap identifies progress, gaps and priorities for Laos in implementing the EW4ALL.

The work done under the CREWS project has helped improve data collection, capacity building, information technology and policy options to strengthen early warning and preparedness in a country that is highly vulnerable to climatic hazards. These contribute directly to actions identified under Pillar 2 on hazard detection and forecasting under the EW4ALL roadmap. With clearer identification of the technical and financial gaps that the EW4ALL process has brought out, I hope that this would be the evidence base needed to invest more resources and technical capacities.

Let me to share a few reflections on behalf of the UN system in Lao PDR: 

• The UN in Lao PDR is committed to support the Government in its implementation of the 9th National Socio-Economic Development Plan. Our UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (2022-26) is aligned with the government’s development priorities.

• The Cooperation Framework brings together technical expertise from UN agencies, both in-country and non-resident, under four strategic priorities including one on environment, climate change and resilience.

• It is under the resilience priority that we are working together to strengthen our support to the Government of Lao PDR. In addition to the collaboration on EW4ALL, we are engaged in the development of key national policies on flood response and disaster risk reduction, strengthening risk information and data collection capacities of national and sub-national governments on flood preparedness.

Undoubtedly, the impact of natural hazards is the highest on those who live in flood-prone or remote areas, those who lack the coping capacities and do not have the knowledge or awareness to respond. Unsurprisingly, these tend to be people and communities who are already vulnerable, the poor, senior citizens, people with disabilities, migrant workers, members of ethnic groups and others. In all our work, their situation is foremost on our minds as we pledged to leave no one behind in our policy and programme work.

I would like to conclude by saying that the UN in Lao PDR is committed to support the Government and the CREWS Secretariat in strengthening early warning systems and capacities that are essential to building resilience of communities and of the country.