Strengthening the Preparedness Capacity of Local Civil Society Organizations for Effective Emergency Response: Workshop on Disaster Risk Reduction and Management

Local non-governmental organizations (LNGOs) and civil society organizations (CSOs) play an important role in disaster management in Sri Lanka especially in disaster response and relief services. However, these organizations find difficulties and challenges to significantly contribute due to possession of limited capacities in terms of human, financial, knowledge and technical capacities. Lack of collaborative and coordinated effort is also has become a bottleneck for them to contribute to the disaster management, preparedness, relief, and response processes. Having understood the importance of the role of the LNGOs and CSOs in locally-led disaster preparedness for emergency response, SLPP has engaged in several initiatives to strengthen the capacity of local NGOs and CSOs. Building their technical capacity in different preparedness, relief, and response aspects are one of the key such interventions of SLPP. The purpose of this workshop on disaster risk reduction and management is to develop the technical capacity of LNGOs and CSOs on disaster risk reduction and management. This will assist them to provide a better service for the local vulnerable communities for disaster prevention and mitigation. And also to scale up the partnerships and local levels.

The overall objective of this activity is to strengthen the technical capacities of CSO members in the Kaluthara district which is highly prone to frequent disasters to reduce the impact of disaster risks in the respective geographical limits and beyond. The other focuses include:

• Enhancing the knowledge and skills of CSO members on disaster Management particularly the response aspect and 
• Establishing a link with Disaster Management Centre (DMC) for enabling better coordination before, during, and after disaster situations.