Ms. Apsara Pandey of the Nursing Association of Nepal holds her 2017 Risk Award trophy, flanked by Mr. David Stevens of UNISDR (right), and jury members Ms. Sandra Wu, board member of the UNISDR Private Sector Alliance for Disaster Resilient Societies, and Mr. Thomas Loster, Chairman of the Munch Re Foundation (Photo: UNISDR)
By Jonathan Fowler
CANCUN, Mexico, 24 May 2017 – A cutting-edge plan to deploy the power of technology to monitor health risks in Nepal has won an international award at the 2017 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction.
Risk Award laureate the Nursing Association of Nepal won the prize for its “EpiNurse” project – short for “Epidemiology Nurse” – which will equip nurses in the Himalayan nation with monitoring and surveillance tools to prevent and control infectious diseases after disasters.
“EpiNurse’s role is to ensure that disaster risk is reduced,” said Ms. Apsara Pandey of the Nursing Association of Nepal, after receiving the award.
“Our network is very powerful when it comes to collecting vital information. Nurses are able to identify high risk and vulnerable populations. Human contact in disaster-prone areas can build disaster risk knowledge and contribute to reducing risk,” she said.
The goal of EpiNurse is to train frontline health workers in earthquake-prone urban areas to act as health security monitors. The information collected through the monitoring process will feed a database that will help experts to further develop models that support risk-management decisions in disaster situations and thereby help to reduce future risks.
Monitoring and curbing health risks in the wake of disasters such is the epitome of what is known as a multi-hazard approach to risk. Looking at a swathe of hazards as part of a single picture is the bedrock of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, a 15-year international agreement adopted in 2015. Governments meeting at the Global Platform in Cancun, Mexico, are taking stock of efforts to implement the Sendai Framework.
Issued every two years by the Munich Re Foundation, the UN office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) and the Global Risk Forum Davos, the Risk Award honours innovative plans and approaches to reducing risk and enhancing disaster management. The 100,000-euro prize, provided by Munich Re, enables the winners to move from the drawing board to the real thing.
“The aim is to improve global risk prevention,” underlined Mr. Thomas Loster, Chairman of the Munich Re Foundation. “The prize money goes directly to project implementation.”
The theme of this year’s edition of the Risk Award was “Innovative concepts and technologies for information and communication”, with the entrants presenting digital projects to help communities better anticipate disasters.
After intense deliberations that helped identify the ten best entrants, the Risk Award jury in February released a final shortlist of three. Besides EpiNurse, the other two projects were in Kenya and India.
“I consider myself lucky because I was able to read about projects that use innovation, on the ground, to solve very specific issues,” said jury member Ms. Sandra Wu, a board member of the UNISDR Private Sector Alliance for Disaster Resilient Societies, or ARISE.