HE Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor al-Thani speaks as Dominican Republic Foreign Minister Carlos Morales (left) and Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bashir Atalay look on at the Conference on the HOPEFOR Initiative at Ritz-Carlton Doha yesterday. PICTURE: Jayaram
By Ramesh Mathew/Staff Reporter

HE the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor al-Thani, has called for greater co-operation between national militaries and civil defence teams at local, national, regional and international levels to effectively counter the issues arising out of natural disasters and calamities.
Delivering the keynote address at the concluding session of the three-day “International conference on HOPEFOR Initiative”, the Prime Minister said no country or agency could handle on its own the problems arising from natural disasters, and hence there is a strong need for strengthening mutual co-operation between different forces and militaries all over.
Asserting that no country is immune to calamities, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim said there has been no history of any country or national or international agencies having handled such situations on its own ever. “Better co-ordination between countries and agencies could certainly provide faster and easier solutions to alleviate the miseries of affected people on such occasions,” he said.
The Prime Minister said traditional emergency response systems have become ineffective and they have left a huge gap during disasters, quite often causing greater damage to the affected countries, “This strengthens the need for setting up permanent and effective agencies at different levels to counter problems arising from natural disasters,” he said.
Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim also recalled the initiatives made by Qatar, along with Turkey and Dominican Republic, at a session in the United Nations General Assembly last year on the issue of responses to natural disaster and the support their resolution received by many countries that witnessed natural calamities in recent years.
Speaking later, Turkish Deputy Premier Bashir Atalay highlighted the necessity of responding rapidly and capably to natural disasters and also the need for a permanent centre to fight such calamities. “Every natural disaster would have an enormous economic or social impact on a country and its people and no one would be able to answer such developments on its own,” he said.
He said two major earthquakes in Turkey in 1999 created untold miseries and sufferings to his people when the country had to fight them on its own. “However, even though there were many deaths in the earthquakes that hit Turkey last month, the international support that it received from various quarters helped in reducing casualties substantially and the country benefited from the lessons that it got from international exposure,” said Atalay.
Dominican Republic’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Carlos Morales Troncoso said his country, which he described as having situated in a hotbed of natural calamities, suffered badly from natural calamities more than two years ago. “It was our own experience with such a major catastrophe that prompted Dominican Republic to initiate steps at international level to counter such disasters,” he said.
The South American leader recalled that the events in Haiti more than a year ago also highlights the necessity of having efficient professional and technically qualified disaster management agencies at different levels. “What the world requires at this juncture is a network of trained specialists which could respond faster to natural calamities,” he said.