Capacity Building Experience for Disaster Risk Reduction in Central Asia

Abstract. A capacity building experience in Central Asia is illustrated, which consisted in the organization of a series of eight training workshops devoted to the different components of risk assessment, focused on earthquakes, floods and selected landslide scenarios. Specifically, the activity consisted of five country-based workshops on exposure assessment, organised one in each of the involved Countries (i.e. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan), plus three thematic workshops on hazard, vulnerability and risk modelling, organised at the regional scale of Central Asia. The capacity building workshops provided participants an opportunity to learn about international practice and methodologies related to natural risks assessment, as well as to discuss the value of methods applied for large-scale risk assessment, showing how they complement and advance what was previously done in the region. The involvement of local scientific experts (including invited speakers) was essential in recognizing and supplying relevant information from methodologies previously applied in each country, as well as to discuss the possibilities offered by the newly proposed procedures and to validate their products. To increase the impact of the capacity building activities and to cascade the training, local universities, research institutes and associations were involved, so as to reach younger professionals and experts.

In view of the restrictions imposed by the Covid19 emergency, all workshops were held in online mode; this restriction eventually turned out to be an advantage, as it allowed for a much broader participation, beyond any expectations, especially for the regional thematic workshops. Participation was active and varied, involving not only individuals from academy and research institutes, but also a significant number of representatives from Ministries, professionals, young experts and students. The feedback from participants, received through anonymous evaluation forms, was especially useful and positive, indicating that the topics covered by the workshops were relevant to their current work and that participants are likely to use the presented tools and data in their activities. It also provided valuable indications that were considered when planning the subsequent activities.

Lessons learned from this capacity building activity are discussed, including a summary description of the workshops structure, their attendance and feedback from participants. The experience collected during the workshops is summarized here and generalized in order to support future experiences of this kind, in the region and worldwide.