New Delhi, Nov 9
Aiming at synchronising efforts to institutionalise regional cooperation on disaster response among SAARC member countries, the South Asian Annual Disaster Management Exercise” (SAADMEx) will begin here from November 23.
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) member countries will participate in this joint exercise which will be inaugurated by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.
The main focus of this exercise will be to test the inter-governmental coordination, create synergy and synchronise efforts to institutionalise regional cooperation on disaster response among the member countries of SAARC region.
This will be the first-ever joint exercise to be conducted by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) of India.
Through the exercise, the important aspects of responding to disasters by pooling of resources/expertise will be addressed and also the imperative of presenting a well coordinated response within the SAARC region will be emphasised.
In the run-up to the exercise, the NDRF has held an Advance Coordination Conference during the first week of September, 2015 which was attended by delegates from all member countries of SAARC and officials of Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), other stake holders and representatives of NDRF.
