A-PAD PHILIPPINES is a platform, a framework for collaboration, cooperation and pooling of efforts and sharing of resources between humanitarian organizations, CSOs, private sector, and government units.
HOW A-PAD PHILIPPINES OPERATES
Citizens’ Disaster Response Center (CDRC) takes on the secretariat functions of A-PAD-Philippines. As such, it would take responsibility for entering into bilateral and multilateral relationships with organizations, institutions, agencies, groups and individuals, under the platform of A-PAD Philippines, for the purpose of delivering emergency response and early recovery services and undertaking projects for rehabilitation, disaster risk reduction and addressing the vulnerabilities of peoples and communities. CDRC in partnership with the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF) jointly undertakes activities of A-PAD Philippines in the pursuit of strengthening multisectoral cooperation. PDRF is commissioned by the Government to solidify the commitment of private sector support in disaster aid programs, and in doing so, it draws agreement with humanitarian organizations, such as CDRC, to complement initiatives to address the issue of disaster resiliency in the country and the Asia Pacific region.
Vision
A-PAD Ph envisions itself as “a solid, robust response framework, setting a global benchmark in localized DRR platform”.
Mission
As a national platform, the Mission of APAD Ph is to:
A. Establish itself as a cross-sectoral platform for disaster resilience, distinguished by the strong partnership between the private sector and government;
B. Be distinguished as well through its community-based engagement aimed at setting up resilient communities;
C. Have six (6) functional Regional Platforms (RP) with a Lead Convenor, a Secretariat, its own plans and programs; and
D. Respond to disaster both within and outside their regional influence
MESSAGES FROM CDRC BOARD
Lourdes Louella E. Escandor
CDRC Board of Trustees Member
The Citizens’ Disaster Response Center (CDRC) welcomes the launching of the National Platform of Asia Pacific Alliance for Disaster Management in the Philippines. CDRC, as one of the five founding members of A-PAD, is ready to take on the responsibility and challenges of A-PAD Philippines. Disaster has become an issue of resiliency in the Philippines so it demands a collective response and responsibility from our society. The engagement among civil society organizations, private sectors, and the government in disaster management needs to be further developed. This is the only way to make a greater impact on the issue of disaster resiliency in the Philippines. A-PAD Philippines is a dynamic platform that facilitates cohesive collaboration and pooling of resources of different sectors.
With the guidance and leadership of the Asia Pacific Alliance for Disaster Management (A-PAD), A-PAD Philippines works towards the greater involvement of private sector in disaster management. The private sector must realize their capacity to complement the efforts of humanitarian organizations and the government in disaster mitigation.
Learning from the experiences of our neighbor countries in the Asia Pacific and the decades of experience of CDRC in disaster management, I strongly believe that A-PAD Philippines will thrive on mitigating the impacts of disasters as it intensifies cooperation, support, and connectedness across different sectors.
Dr. Susana M. Balingit
CDRC Board of Trustees Member
The Citizens’ Disaster Response Center (CDRC) is proud to undertake the A-PAD Philippines project. The fundamental objective of A-PAD Philippines is relatively similar to CDRC’s Community-Based Disaster Management. Both work on enhancing the capacity of people to respond to disaster through the concept of community-building. It is indeed essential to encourage all sectors to be a part of a community that contributes and assumes roles in disaster preparedness and response. CDRC believes that A-PAD Philippines can work on developing a pro-active role for private sectors. The framework of A-PAD is an effective disaster aid mechanism which allows all sector to participate and work for a common goal, alleviate the impact of disasters in the Philippines.
Seeing the progress of Asia Pacific Alliance for Disaster Management (A-PAD) in other member countries, I am honored that A-PAD entrusted CDRC for this project. With CDRC’s commitment and dedicated staff, I have high hopes for the success of A-PAD Philippines.