The Leading Disaster Relief Agency　Civic Force

What can we learn and what can we share from our experiences with the March 11, 2011 Tohoku Earthquake?
In October 2012, Civic Force will launch the Asia Pacific Relief Platform (provisional title) in cooperation with Asia Pacific countries, regional financial communities, governments and private organizations such as NGOs. The Platform will serve as a disaster response system with the goal of saving more lives more quickly when the next disaster in Asia Pacific region strikes.

Since our founding in 2009, Civic Force has aimed to be an organization that connects NPOs/NGOs, businesses and local and national government, making use of and sharing each group's information, people, funds and materials to provide swift, uninterrupted and effective disaster relief during large scale disasters in Japan.
In preparation for the next possible disaster, Civic Force invited disaster relief specialists to a conference held in Hiroshima in April 2009. Based on the results of that conference, representatives from NGO networks, business groups and governments from Indonesia, South Korea, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Taiwan gathered under one roof in Tokyo's United Nations University in September of 2011 to hold the Asia Pacific Relief Summit. More than 170 people came to the Summit's open forum.
At the Summit, business leaders who promote initiatives to provide disaster relief within the Asia Pacific region and representatives from NGO disaster relief networks deepened their exchanges, building relationships aimed at the creation of not just a loose network but rather a system of mutual support that would quickly and effectively provide funds and information when emergency relief was needed.
The goals of the Asia Pacific Relief Platform initiative include the creation of mutual aid relationships between National Platforms in each country, the strengthening of each National Platform's abilities, cooperation in providing public awareness activates, fundraising and, during a disaster, relationships that make swift cooperation, based on agreements concluded prior to the event, possible.

Based on the Asia Pacific Relief Platform Initiative agreement implemented on September 30, 2011, the next step is to hold meetings by June 2012 in preparation for the establishment of the Platform (the establishment of the National Platforms in each country).
Civic Force plans to formally announce the establishment at the 5th Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (AMCDRR), which will be held in October 2012. The Asia Pacific Relief Platform initiative will reach beyond individual regions, countries and organizations. We at Civic Force believe it will lead to more lives saved during disasters and we will continue to work with all our strength towards its implementation.

Memorandum of the Asia-Pacific Relief Summit.pdf