Statement by Mr. Svein Ludvigsen, Minister for Fisheries and Coastal Affaires of Norway, the Ministerial Meeting on Tsunami Early Warning Arrangements, 29 January 2005, Phuket, Thailand

Mr. Chairman, Excellencies

I would like to thank the Royal Thai Government for organising this very important meeting in order to facilitate regional cooperation on tsunami early warning arrangements. It is very impressive that you have been able to arrange an event like this on such short notice. Yesterday a group of us here made a visit to the affected areas near Phuket yesterday, organised by our Thai hosts. The visit made a deep impression on me. It was really astonishing to see the vast destruction. At the same time I admire the enormous work already done in order to clean up the areas and how fast reconstruction work already has come.

The tsunami disaster which hit Thailand and many other countries in Asia and Africa so hard, was a grave chock to us all. In addition to all the victims from countries around the Indian Ocean, many citizens of other countries, including my own, perished on these shores. This has contributed to our understanding of the importance of getting well functioning warning systems in place in order to be better prepared to meet similar disasters in the future.

Norway’s Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs recently visited Thailand. During that visit, they confirmed that Norway is ready to contribute – together with the international community – to improve the warning systems in this region.

This was also emphasized by our Minister for International Development at the Meeting on Humanitarian Assistance to Tsunami Affected Communities in Geneva on January 11 ^th>.

Norway fully supports the broad agreement reached at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe last week on the need for collective international efforts to prevent natural disasters. We also agreed that the United Nations must play a central role in coordinating this work.

Mr. Chairman, I want to confirm Norway’s support to the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, the ISDR. During the Kobe conference we were setting ambitious goals, and then we have to be consistent in the ways we are enhancing implementation. Therefore there is a need for a long term funding to ISDR as a strong and formal structure to follow up this very important conference. Here, as in other parts of our common efforts for reducing disaster risks, we have to make the UN the lead and coordinating agency, on the cost of national flagging.

This being said, I also want to challenge all of us to give stronger support to the Provention Consortium in order to mobilize and integrate resources outside the UN System. Partnership with the private sector, NGOs and local communities is most essential.

Mr. Chairman. I would like to commend the Thai government for preparing a very useful concept paper to this conference, and for its strong efforts on drafting a ministerial declaration. In my opinion it is important that proposals to establish financial mechanisms and regional bodies for the regional work on disaster prevention should be subject to further consideration. It might be a good idea for the UN to make a feasibility study of these proposals for later decision. I am convinced that Thailand will continue to play an important role in this work. In my opinion, it will be essential that the countries of this region agree on how financial mechanisms and regional bodies should be organised to enhance disaster prevention in the most effective way.

Norway has a variety of institutions and companies which cover different aspects of the requirements to be fulfilled in the planning, establishment, collection of data and the operation of a regional early warning system. Numerical models of oceanographic and meteorological processes are very advanced. Systems are especially developed to facilitate environment surveillance. Sophisticated sensors are developed and commissioned to collect information for planning and statistical purposes. If Norwegian know-how like this is considered useful in the development of a regional early warning system, we will be happy to contribute.

At the same time we should keep in mind that disaster prevention is more than high-tech early warning systems. We must also look into ways of educating the public and disaster prevention and how to disseminate the information gathered by the technological systems which will be established.

Mr. Chairman. Let me again thank your government for its efforts in contributing to the establishment of an early warning system that can make us all more prepared against future disasters and make us able to save human lifes and property. Let me also finally thank our Thai hosts for the kind hospitality offered to us this weekend.