A year after the devastating Christchurch earthquake the country is still taking stock of the lessons that have been learned from dealing with such a disaster.
New Zealand is internationally renowned for disaster planning and prevention and the issue will be discussed at an international conference which is about to get underway in Wellington.
One of those attending is Jonathan Andrews from the United Nations Development Programme's Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery.
He says Kiwis are among world-leaders in disaster preparedness.
“New Zealand is well up there in terms of exactly taking these issues to heart and being prepared. Very good search and rescue standards, very good building codes,” he says.
Mr Andrews also says New Zealand has a lot of integrity when it comes to applying such factors. But the UN are struggling to have other countries adopt a similar approach.
“Awareness is one of the issues but I think moreover its convincing nations with meagre budgets to invest in prevention, you can imagine the pressure on the public servants for building roads, for building water supplies… when a disaster hasn’t happened it’s a very tough sell,” he says
Read more: http://www.3news.co.nz/United-Nations-looking-for-more-countries-to-follow-New-Zealands-lead/tabid/423/articleID/245110/Default.aspx#ixzz1oKqF9D9j
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