Tehran boosts capacity to handle emergencies

Representatives of NGOs, the United Nations, the Red Crescent and the Iranian ministries of health and interior have gathered in the capital, Tehran, this week in the context of enhancing of emergency preparedness in the country. "We need to have our capacity, as well as our communication skills, strengthened," Nazanin Kazemi, the country representative for the International Consortium for Refugees in Iran (ICRI), a UK-based facilitation unit for NGOs working in Iran, told IRIN on Wednesday. The four-day government-approved meeting opened on Monday and is being guided by two trainers from Save the Children-UK. It aims to provide emergency preparedness planning (EPP) not only to government ministries but also to UN agencies and NGOs with sufficient capacity, funding and access to react during a time of crisis. "Mostly we have tried to pinpoint those NGOs that have a baseline capacity to build on," Kazemi explained. Such training would prove invaluable during any type of disaster - from earthquakes, floods, or droughts to a potential Iraqi or Afghan crisis along the border, she added. "Unfortunately, we are in a region where there is no shortage of crises," she said, noting that Iran had already witnessed two earthquakes and two floods this past year. The international, Iraq- or Afghanistan-based NGOs participating in the event included Oxfam, Global Partners, Muslim Hope, Ockenden International, Medecins Sans Frontieres and the Iraqi Refugee Aid Council. Also present were the Iranian Bureau for Foreign Immigrants Affairs, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Children's Fund and the World Food Programme. Kazemi said she hoped the meeting would result in the enhancement of the capacity of participating organisations to communicate with one other in the event of a crisis. "The lack of a communication mechanism between all the parties is one drawback we have had in the past when a crisis has happened," she noted. Also emphasised during the meeting was the need to work more closely to the Sphere Project standard of international humanitarian assistance - put forward by a group of humanitarian agencies working over the past few years to establish a minimum standard for humanitarian assistance operations in the event of a crisis. Babak Askarian, the country representative of the US-based NGO Muslim Hope, told IRIN that Sphere was helping relief workers achieve a common language during times of emergency. "Sphere sets a standard for relief work among NGOs, UN agencies, and government bodies," he said, adding that this was the first time the Sphere format had been introduced in Iran.