Assistance for Supporting "Reducing Vulnerability of School Children to Earthquakes" Project in Asia-Pacific Region

December 3, 2004

On December 3 (Friday), the Government of Japan and the United Nations (UN) decided to extend assistance of a total of 935,768.50 US dollars (approximately 102 million yen) through the Trust Fund for Human Security for the program "Reducing Vulnerability of School Children to Earthquakes" to be implemented in Republic of Indonesia, India, Republic of the Fiji Islands and Republic of Uzbekistan by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) and the United Nations Centre for Regional Development (UNCRD).

This project aims at ensuring safety of school children and creation of earthquake-resilient community in seismically vulnerable areas by retrofitting of school buildings, demonstrating retrofitting technology training and disaster education. The activities included in this project are as follows:

(1)	Assessing seismic vulnerability and enhancing seismic safety by retrofitting schools as model cases;
(2)	Demonstrating earthquake-safer construction practices, and enhancing the capacity of masons and engineers;
(3)	Raising awareness of students and communities through disaster education;
(4)	Disseminating case study experiences widely throughout the target counties and their respective regions.

This project is expected to diffuse earthquake disaster prevention and enhance the capacity of seismically vulnerable communities in the Asia-Pacific region through activities such as enhancing the seismic safety of school buildings and promoting disaster education.

(Note 1) The Trust Fund for Human Security was established in the UN Secretariat in March 1999 by the initiative of the Government of Japan, with total contributions of 29.0 billion yen (approximately US$ 256 million) up to the present. The Trust Fund has assisted numerous projects of UN agencies that address various threats against human life, livelihood and dignity, from the perspective of Human Security.

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