About TASW

Disaster preparedness is often an overlooked, underfunded, and under-planned service that only gets attention when a disaster strikes. In light of the ongoing threat for future pandemics and large-scale disasters, the UN and USAID have organized the Towards a Safer World (TASW) Initiative.

Towards A Safer World seeks to capture the achievements of the major efforts undertaken since 2005 as a reaction to the threats of global influenza pandemics. The response resulted in diverse actors collaborating and taking actions to prepare for and mitigate the potentially devastating disruption on the vital functions of society. TASW believes that this unprecedented level of multi-sector planning offers a unique opportunity to identify key elements that can advance all disaster preparedness activities.

TASW is working with teams comprised of representatives of the United Nations Systems Influenza Coordination (UNSIC), the World Food Programme (WFP), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the UN World Tourism Organization (WTO), the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to identify and document the main achievements, gaps and lessons of pandemic preparedness efforts in each of the following areas: bio-security and animal health, civil-military coordination, communication, community level preparedness, health, humanitarian assistance, logistics, private sector preparedness, travel and tourism, whole of government planning.

The Towards a Safer World Conference will be held at the World Food Programme HQ in Rome, Italy on 15 – 16 September 2011.

About the Website:

This website will be used to help prepare for the September 2011 conference in order to engage leaders, disaster managers and community planners from around the world and connect them to help encourage collaboration on best practices, share resources and identify challenges and solutions for disaster preparedness.

Click on this link to Register to use the website.

You can always access the Register/Log-in page at the top right of each website page.

Management of TASW initiative

TASW is implemented by a small inter-agency project team comprising staff from WFP, UNSIC, AED and USAID.

A high-level steering committee oversees the work of the project team and is responsible for decisions regarding the direction of the initiative. The steering committee includes Amir Abdulla (WFP), Dennis Carroll (USAID), Keiji Fukuda (WHO), Kerri-Ann Jones (State Dept), David Nabarro (UNSIC) and Margareta Wahlstrom (ISDR).

TASW hopes to gather ideas from practitioners in order to advance knowledge of best practice in preparedness. Disaster and pandemic preparedness practitioners are encouraged to join the discussions on the website in order to deepen the ideas about better preparedness that will be disseminated and discussed at the TASW conference in Rome on 15-16 September.

Views expressed by discussants on the website do not necessarily represent the views of their employer or the TASW.