The inability of coordinating the opportunities and exercising the ability to take advantage of warnings has become a challenging task for the developing nations in disaster management, Disaster Management and Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe said.

Addressing the 15th Session of the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF), Vietnam, on Thursday, the minister said. "Recent disasters in Myanmar (cyclone Nargis) and China (Wenchen earthquake) have shown how the problem now is not accessing such information but coordinating the many opportunities and having and exercising the ability to take advantage of the information being provided. This is the challenge for developing countries and it is our belief that forums such as APRSAF could catalyze closer cooperation between key sectoral players in our countries."

Excerpts of the minister’s statement:

A relatively small number of countries in the Asia-Pacific region have been able to function at the cutting edge of space technology. However many nations have accorded the subject high national priority especially in the sphere of remote sensing and other everyday technologies such as weather forecasting, GPS systems and television and communications media. However, Sri Lanka, which was home to space visionary Dr. Arthur C. Clarke for much of his adult life, remains dependent on benefits from cooperation with other nations and international organizations with access to more developed technologies in our pursuit of applied solutions that enable us to face the many development challenges that we are confronted with as a nation. We are fully aware of the undoubted benefits of space technology which is a key component of any integrated development strategy of the contemporary era. Accordingly we are determined to build capacities in this critical area of endeavour and look forward to working in close collaboration with our friends and partners in the region and globally in order to achieve these ends.

From the standpoint of disaster management, which is part of my ministerial portfolio, the identification of and management of risks of disaster is a key component of our national efforts to ensure long term and durable development for our people of both present and future generations. As we move towards the mainstreaming of disaster risk reduction (or "DRR") into development planning in our countries - some thing that Sri Lanka has recently committed itself to - we must all be mindful of the close nexus that exists between disaster management, and more specifically, DRR and sustainable development. Indeed, a commonly used definition of DRR advanced by some UN agencies is: ‘The conceptual framework of elements considered with the possibilities to minimize vulnerabilities and disaster risks throughout a society, to avoid (through prevention) or to limit (via mitigation and preparedness) the adverse impacts of hazards (or risks), within the board context of sustainable development.’

The recent past has seen a significant increase in the use of space-based solutions and information to support the management of risk and disasters. The use of such technologies has been proven useful in the risk assessment, mitigation and preparedness phases of disaster management. As we learnt from the tsunami event of December 2004, space technologies have a central role to play in providing early warning to communities that are at risk and also in supporting rescue efforts.