Welcome Address by Secretary General of APRU, Dr Christopher Tremewan

Please view a welcome message from the Secretary General of APRU, Dr. Christopher Tremewan.

 

On behalf of APRU, I welcome you to the 16th Annual APRU Multi-Hazards Symposium.

We are a network of 61 leading research universities around the Pacific Ocean, linking Asia, North and South Americas and Australasia, working together on the challenges facing across the region.

The APRU Multi-Hazards Program is one of our most successful and long-standing programs that addresses all-hazards approaches, disaster recovery and mitigations.

This year’s conference theme “Building Partnerships for Sustainable Disaster Risk Reduction for All Hazards” highlights the importance of an all-hazards approach. It focuses on strengthening resilience and preparedness for future disaster management including natural and biological hazards such as we are experiencing right now with COVID-19. The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) Strategic Framework 2022-2025 emphasizes that the world is changing. We must commit to addressing this accelerating transformation through our actions. As part of this, close integration of the DRR agenda with the climate agenda helps contribute towards comprehensive risk management and the advancement of the Sendai Framework (UNDRR, 2021).

The multidisciplinary nature of this symposium is attested to by the subsidiary themes of crisis management, innovative infrastructure, and sustainability. As a higher education network with research expertise across a very diverse region, we harness the collective capabilities of APRU universities for cutting-edge research to address such global challenges. One way we do this is by partnering with international organizations, the public and private sectors, and NGOs in policy development and raising public awareness.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented our societies with cross-border crises which demand that we
shape the new normal together. APRU as an international network is well-positioned to be highly
effective in doing this.

We are very grateful to colleagues at Universitas Indonesia for their commitment and hard work in hosting this the annual symposium. Our appreciation goes to Professor Ari Kuncoro, Rector of the University, for his strong support, as well as to the scientific committee and organizing team at the Disaster Risk Reduction Center. We also thank Professor Fumihiko Imamura, Director of IRIDeS at Tohoku University, and Professor Osamu Murao and Dr Takako Izumi, APRU Multi-Hazards Program Chair and Director, for their collective leadership, and the program core group for their consultation over the past year.

I wish you a productive and fruitful event.

Christopher Tremewan
Secretary-General APRU