Second meeting of BRICS Ministers for Disaster Management to be held on Aug 22

New Delhi, Aug. 18 (ANI): The second meeting of BRICS Ministers for Disaster Management will be held in Rajasthan's Udaipur on August 22-23. The two-day meeting will focus on themes of flood risk management and forecasting of extreme weather events in the context of changing climate. The delegations will be led by Ministers of Disaster Management from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, besides technical experts. It is a follow up of the first meeting of the BRICS Ministers for Disaster Management convened by the Russian Federation in St. Petersburg on April 19-20. Recognising the common challenge posed by natural and man-made disasters, BRICS countries have identified Disaster Management as an important area of collaboration. The Ufa Declaration signed by BRICS Nations at the seventh BRICS Summit on July 9, 2015 identified the need to promote cooperation in preventing and developing responses to emergency situations. The declaration also acknowledged the fruitful discussions on natural disasters within the context of BRICS cooperation in Science, Technology and Innovation. It also reiterated BRICS commitment to mitigate the negative impact of climate change. All the five BRICS countries have signed the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. They are also parties to the adoption of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in March, 2015 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September 2015. A number of SDGs have specific targets related to Disaster Risk Management (DRM). (ANI)