Disaster course vital for PNG

AN officer from the National Disaster Centre  completed a four-week disaster and emergency response management course at the Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies in Honolulu, Hawaii, last month.
 National disaster officer in charge of operations, Andrew Oaego, who also looks after logistics and communications in NDC, graduated last month with a diploma in comprehensive crisis response management.
“The training was interesting and useful to our situation here, as a country in the Pacific.
“Our provincial disaster personnel should be encouraged to attend this type of courses in the future, seeing PNG is a disaster-prone country,” Mr Oaego told The National.
He said provinces should send their disaster officers to attend such vital courses as it would help them to be prepared for natural disasters.
Mr Oaego joined 74 other senior military and civilian leaders from 31 countries and territories, throughout the Asia-Pacific region, as well as representatives from the United Nations, to study regional crisis management issues. 
There were two participants from Sweden and Uruguay representing the UN.
The CCM course takes a comprehensive approach to CCM operations and activities. 
Course content focuses on three broad topic areas:  crisis assessments and condition-setting, transitions across the prevent-prepare-respond cycle and, during- and post-crisis reconstruction. 
In addition to this conceptual framework, the CCM course also addresses CCM-task coalition building and operations, inter-agency coordination, stability trends analysis, preventive activities as well as international interventions, post-emergency reconstruction, transition shaping, and strategic communications. 
The course is divided into three major blocks: framing the CCM problem; elements of stability; and making collaborative CCM operations work.
The Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies is a U.S department of defence regional study, conference and research centre. 
The centre’s mission is to educate, connect, and empower security practitioners to advance Asia-Pacific security.
Since 1995, the centre has had representatives from 72 countries and four international organisations attending courses at the centre for a total of 4,355 alumni. 
Apart from this, the centre has also hosted or co-hosted conferences or seminars with over 7,200 participants.