PDC Formalizes Partnership with Taiwan's NCDR

Chief Information Officer Chris Chiesa explains some of PDC's disaster management capabilities to NCDR's Director Dr. Liang-Chun Chen as PDC Executive Director Ray Shirkhodai looks on.

On November 4 and 5, Executive Director Ray Shirkhodai and Chief Information Officer Chris Chiesa traveled to Taipei for the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between University of Hawaii: Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) and Taiwan's National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction (NCDR). The MoU signing coincided with the celebration of the fifth anniversary of NCDR, which naturally brought a festive air to the ceremony.

The signing of the MoU by PDC and NCDR was the culmination of a year-long process of exploring potential areas of collaboration between the two Centers. In January representatives from NCDR and Taiwan's National Health Command Center-Centers for Disease Control (NHCC-CDC) visited Hawaii to share experiences and knowledge in disaster reduction activities. The delegation-led by the director and the deputy executive secretary of NCDR, Dr. Liang-Chun Chen and Dr. Wei-Sen Li, respectively, and accompanied by Dr. Yu-Lun Liu, medical officer with the Taiwan CDC and Dr. Pao-Shan Yu of the Department of Hydraulic and Ocean Engineering at National Cheng Kung University-met with the executives of several scientific and emergency centers on the island of Oahu. When the delegates arrived on Maui, on January 24, they visited PDC for a full day of discussions about technology in disaster management, paving the way for future information exchanges between the institutions.

During that same trip, which was organized and facilitated by Director General Philip Wang of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Honolulu, PDC's Chiesa accompanied the visitors to the Asia Pacific Advanced Network 25th Meeting and to special meetings at the University of Hawaii and East West Center.

At the time, PDC reported that NCDR's visit "marked the start of a promising collaboration, and set the stage for continued information exchange and sharing of experiences to further the common disaster reduction goals." The MoU and the cooperation envisioned in the document are the fulfillment of that "promise."

A few months after the Taiwan delegation visited Maui, PDC Senior Geospatial Data Analyst Todd Bosse was invited to participate in an "International Training Workshop for Typhoon and Flood Disaster Risk Reduction," May 5-9 in Taipei. During this time, Bosse presented a PDC briefing to the group and met with the technical staff at NCDR to learn about their systems, discuss PDC geospatial data capabilities, and to begin to explore ideas for possible PDC-NCDR collaborative projects.

In September, Chiesa attended a meeting of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Taskforce for Emergency Preparedness (APEC TFEP), which was organized by NCDR to discuss recovery from large-scale disasters. The theme of the conference was inspired by the then very recent earthquakes in China. PDC Imagery Analyst Richard Nezelek was an invited participant and presented at the conference. After the event in Taipei, ending September 25, Nezelek most of the APEC TFEP participants-and still under the auspices of NCDR-he toured the earthquake-ravaged areas of Sichuan Province in the People's Republic of China, September 26-28. The rapidly developed plan for this conference was a breakthrough collaboration for the governments of Taiwan and the Peoples Republic of China and a demonstration of NCDR's leadership role in the region.

The NCDR-PDC MoU covers collaboration and information exchange with an emphasis on risk assessment and disaster early warning activities. The celebration of the signing was attended by nearly 100 participants including a number of high ranking officers and executives from agencies and ministries of the Republic of China/Government of Taiwan, as well as a representative of the U.S.'s American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). Opening remarks were provided by Republic of China Vice Premier Dr. C. H. Chiu, NCDR Executive Director Dr. Chen, and PDC's Shirkhodai.

Dr. Liang-Chun Chen, director of Taiwan's National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction, and Mr. Ray Shirkhodai, executive director of PDC, proudly display the Memorandum of Understanding they signed in November 2008.

During the two-day celebration, Shirkhodai and Chiesa had closed-door meetings with NCDR leadership and senior managers to review current and planned activities at both agencies, and to discuss potential areas of collaboration, including possible staff exchanges.

With the MoU in place, the next steps in the partnership of NCDR and UH: PDC will include developing a series of proposals for projects on which the Centers can work together.

For more information, start with these resources:
Taiwan's National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction has a website in English.
News of the January 2008 visit of NCDR officers to PDC was published on PDC's public website.
Other PDC articles reflective of the Center's developing partnership with NCDR include releases referring to the Taiwan Center's participation in the 2008 APEC Meeting and PDC's "Best Practices" Workshop in Vietnam.

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