Speakers Bio & Abstract

Biography
K. Harald Drager, Oslo, Norway, is the founding member of the worldwide acting society TIEMS (The International Emergency Management Society - www.tiems.org), which he took the initiative to establish in 1993. He was the International Vice President of TIEMS since its inauguration until 2002, when he took over as TIEMS President, a position he was re-elected to for the 5th time in 2013. He has brought in new ideas and new people in TIEMS and succeeded the organization to span worldwide. TIEMS has under his leadership become a well recognized organization with growing activities in Asia, Europe and America and now TIEMS activity in Africa and Oceania is emerging. TIEMS has developed to a global well known organization with local chapters in many regions/countries, and TIEMS arranges each year workshops and conferences all over the world with focus on disaster risk reduction. TIEMS has also initiated development of a global education, training and certification network program, GENERATE, and participates in research and development activities to improve systems, methods and equipment in emergency management for achieving better societal resilience.Abstract
Prepare for Tomorrow Today! We are regularly reminded that the world is increasingly vulnerable to emergencies whenever faced with a significant natural disaster. In the 10 years since Hurricane Katrina, the world has seen an annual average of 260 major natural disasters, with average annual economic losses of US$211 billion, insured losses of US$63 billion, and 76,000 lives lost, according to Aon’s latest annual Global of the Climate Catastrophe Report. In 2014, 72 percent of global disaster losses were caused by extreme weather events, from hailstorms in Europe, drought to severe winter weather in the U.S., hurricane damage in Mexico to typhoon damage in the Philippines, and flood in the U.K., India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. In 2015 the devastating Nepal earthquake resulted in close to 9000 lives lost alone. However, this is just for the major disasters. The figures do not include any of the many smaller-scale floods, storms, earthquakes and other localized disasters that as a whole can cause even more disruption and loss.

The foundation of emergency resilience is knowledge, education, and training, which is available throughout the world at colleges, universities, online resources, international educational initiatives, training facilities and others. In spite of the abundance of these educational and training resources, they are not available to many individuals who could benefit from them, especially in developing nations. Even the developed world would benefit from better access to the knowledge and experience of the global community. The International Emergency Management Society - TIEMS has addressed this issue through their project GENERATE, a Global Educational Network for Emergency Resilience and Training Excellence, and the key elements of this initiative will be presented, as one important global preparedness activity.

Preparedness is the foundation of emergency management. In assessing the current levels of preparedness, this presentation will put forward examples from the pre-disaster preparedness in the US, at the national, state, tribal, and local levels, as well as regional collaboration, and includes funding, planning, training, exercising, standards, certifications, accreditations, and credentialing.

However, to always be prepared and have updated and relevant education in emergency management, society needs to look ahead and continuously search for better systems, methods and equipment, for improving the society’s ability to avoid, mitigate, respond to, and recover from natural and man-made disasters. This requires a goal oriented research and development activity, and examples from the European Union R&D program within the security field will be given as good examples on goal oriented research for improving societal resilience.