Cross Cutting Capacity Development Launching the 3cd Program in Metropolitan Manila

The Cross Cutting Capacity Development (3cd) Program is a proposal of the
Earthquakes and Megacities Initiative (EMI) that aims at assisting interested
megacities around the world in improving their vision and orientation of Disaster
Risk Management and disaster risk reduction. Current practice does not fully
consider prevention and mitigation actions in city wide development plans, nor
does it on urban planning and land use activities in the local governments. There
has been a tendency to focus on the response side of this complex process. For
more details see www.earthquakesandmegacities.org .

The Cities of Quezon and Makati, which are two of the 17 cities and
municipalities that constitute Metropolitan Manila, agreed to collaborate in a one
day workshop to start a partnership process to understand current disaster risk
management arrangements in those cities, identify and document examples of
sound practice, and learn about their vision regarding disaster risk management.

An initial assessment of DRM organization and delivery, as well as some sound
practices had been already identified through a two-parts survey questionnaire
designed by EMI and EdM on the second half of 2004.

A first stakeholder workshop took place in Quezon City Hall, and it is expected
that the second workshop will be held in Makati City. In addition to the workshop,
the 3cd Program Implementation Team (PIT) was able to visit and discuss issues related to the program with officials of different departments in both cities.