Masanori Hamada Chairman Recent years have seen an increase in natural disasters around the globe, including earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, storms, landslides, and volcanic eruptions. Statistics from the last quarter century (1986-2011) show that natural disasters resulting in more than 1,000 deaths and missing persons have occurred 60 times worldwide. Significantly, 40 of these have occurred in the Asian region. This means that as many as 3/4 of the more than 1,020,000 world citizens who have lost their lives as a result of these events have come from Asia. The Asian Disaster Reduction Center (ADRC), founded in response to the tragic earthquake that struck Kobe and many of its neighboring communities in 1995, was established to promote international cooperation and collaboration for the reduction of natural disasters in the Asian region. ADRC has 31 member countries and works toward the pursuit of three main goals: (1) building a common database of natural disasters worldwide, (2) fostering professionals in the disaster management field, and (3) strengthening local capacity for disaster risk reduction and swift recovery. The ultimate goal of ADRC is to create safer, more secure, peaceful, and healthy communities throughout the Asian region. To achieve this goal, we must strengthen our partnerships with our Asian neighbors. ADRC also cooperates with the UN and other international organizations, such as the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), on natural disaster risk reduction from a global perspective. We hope you will support ADRC in the pursuit of these goals and that you will join us in promoting disaster reduction efforts in communities around the world.

Masanori Hamada, Ph.D.
Chairman, Asian Disaster Reduction Center