LAHORE: Speakers at a dialogue on Friday urged the need for moving towards disaster risk reduction to minimise loss to human life and property.

The dialogue was organised by the Institute of Social and Policy Sciences (ISAPS) in collaboration with the Foundation Open Society Institute (FOSI).

Speakers included Punjab Assembly’s Standing Committee Chairman Bilal Bhatti, Rescue 1122 Director Brig retired Arshad Zia, Director Civil Defense Rashid Kamal Rehman and Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) Director Coordination Nisar Sani.

Mr Bhatti said good governance in disaster risk reduction was a must in order to improve the disaster risk management. It was necessary to develop confidence of the multiple stakeholders. He highlighted the importance of coordinated, collective, inclusive and prompt response in the disaster risk management framework.

He said the research findings by the ISAPS needed to be shared with the decision makers to link policies with the situation on ground.Retired Brig Zia said disaster response force of the PDMA Punjab, such as Rescue 1122 had the capacity to immediately provide essential equipment to deal with any disaster.

Mr Sani highlighted the importance of capacity building of the PDMA structure and the need to incorporate the disaster risk reduction with the district tiers.

ISAPS Researcher Ahmad Ali introduced the project of Fencing Flood while Luqman Ahmed gave details of the research findings of the project.