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August 17, 2020

JICA's Online Seminar on "Efforts of Japan on Building Disaster Resilient Cities" for technical personnel of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality

17 August 2020 was the 21th anniversary of the Great Marmara earthquake in Turkey, and the week was also known as the disaster preparedness week. Within this scope, JICA organized an online seminar on "Efforts of Japan on Building Disaster Resilient Cities" for the technical personnel of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) on 21 August 2020. Two Japanese experts Mr. Shoji HASEGAWA and Prof. Dr. Itsuki NAKABAYASHI participated in online seminar by making presentations from Japan. There were around 50 technical personnel as well as some Turkish and Japanese media at the seminar.

Before the presentations, Ambassador of Japan to Turkey, H.E. Mr. Akio MIYAJIMA made the first opening remarks and gave historical examples of mutual aid between Turkey and Japan. Underlining that Istanbul is one of the most important cities in the world, Ambassador Miyajima also added that preparedness of Istanbul for disaster and disaster prevention activities are of great importance not only for those living in Istanbul but also for the whole world, including Japan. Lord Mayor of IMM, Mr. Ekrem IMAMOGLU stated in his opening remark that earthquake problem is one of the three issues of Istanbul city, and within this scope, IMM announced an earthquake mobilization on October 14, 2019 in order to create and raise awareness about the earthquake risk. He added that JICA has a very valuable place among their international partners and requested JICA's continuous support in terms of education, technical and financial issues, as before, in the earthquake mobilization.

Mr. Shoji HASEGAWA made a presentation on "Experiences of Japan in Disaster Risk Reduction." He explained the profile of natural disasters in Japan and efforts to build legislation, plans and systems in the field of disaster risk management. In addition, he introduced the targets specified in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) 2015-2030, and described the need to formulate disaster risk reduction (DRR) plans at the national and local levels. Lastly, he explained in detail about the measures for COVID-19 in Japan (planning and implementation). Prof. Dr. Itsuki NAKABAYASHI also made a presentation on "Efforts of Tokyo for Building a Resilient City". Based on his experience of being consistently involved in the development and implementation of DRR plans in cities such as Tokyo and Kobe, he explained that the changes in Japan's DRR efforts after repeated disasters. In particular, he described the need to formulate a pre-reconstruction plan including a vision and manual to prepare for mega earthquake and tsunami, and introduced the contents of training and workshops being held in Tokyo. The participants were interested in the presentations. In particular, it was meaningful for the person in charge of the city of Istanbul to introduce Japan's efforts in terms of disaster prevention practice from both planning and implementation sides. Many questions were expected, but unfortunately, due to time constraints, we are planning to hold a workshop following this one.

At the end of the seminar, Chief Representative of JICA Turkey Office Mr. Nobuhiro IKURO made closing remarks and underlined that JICA has been supporting Turkey especially on disaster since 1959. Dr.Tayfun KAHRAMAN, Head of Department of Earthquake Risk Management and Urban Improvement, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality also took the floor and expressed their appreciation to JICA for sharing Japanese experiences on disaster with IMM.

The online seminar was appeared in some newspapers and internet news as well as live broadcasted from Lord Mayor Ekrem IMAMOGLU's twitter account, and retweeted by more than 800 people.

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