The UNDP-DFID Workshop on Environmental Risk Reduction was co-organized by the Post-Disaster Reconstruction Office of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development (LGOP), United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and UK Department for International Development (DFID) in Mianyang, Sichuan province, from July 17 to 18, 2010. More than 50 people attended the meeting, including experts from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Peking University (PKU) and Beijing Normal University (BNU) as well as representatives from the poverty alleviation offices, villages, counties and cities of Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces.

Huang Chengwei, Deputy Director of LGOP Post-Disaster Reconstruction Office, speaking during the meeting

Huang Chengwei, Deputy Director of LGOP Post-Disaster Reconstruction Office, attended the meeting and delivered an opening speech. He indicated that with the efforts made over the past two years, remarkable achievements have been made in the post-disaster restoration and reconstruction of the poverty-stricken disaster areas affected by the Wenchuan earthquake, but there also remain numerous challenges. It is the compelling responsibility and obligation of the parties concerned to identify the risk of poverty-stricken villages and protect the environment, which, as far as the poverty reduction organizations are concerned, is quite a new topic. It is expected that the workshop participants will be able to develop new ideas through this meeting. Results accomplished during the meeting will not only be of great significance to the five participating pilot villages, but also exert a positive influence upon all poverty-stricken villages in the poverty reduction planning areas. Therefore, all trainees of the workshop are expected to complete their studies as scheduled through attentive learning, active participation and self-motivated thinking.

On behalf of their institutions, Coordinator of UNDP “China Post-Disaster Reconstruction and Risk Management Project” Ms. Yang Fang and DFID Representative Ms. Catherine Moncrieff also congratulated on the convening of the meeting, respectively.

Luan Shengji, Vice President of Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, and Dr. Fang Weihua from BNU and also Associate Professor of the Academy of Disaster Reduction and Emergency Management of the Ministry of Civil Affairs and Ministry of Education (ADREM) delivered a lecture on “Environmental Risk Reduction Strategy” and “Environmental Risk Identification”, respectively. WWF China Research Fellow Ling Lin chaired the participatory discussion.

By combining the lectures with participatory group discussion, the meeting explored at length the post-disaster and post-reconstruction rural community risks and environmental issues, and put forward the relevant strategies to address such problems. It is of critical importance to enhancing the environmental risk awareness of rural poverty-stricken areas, increasing the attention paid by poverty reduction organizations to rural environmental protection, and improving the overall post-disaster restoration and reconstruction of poverty-stricken villages.