Towards a Safer World

From May 21 to May 24, WFP, in collaboration with AFRICOM and OCHA, conducted a Pandemic Readiness and Response Exercise in Johannesburg with representatives of 6 Southern African National Disaster Management Organisations with support from private sector, academia and military colleagues. The first day of the exercise was designated a 'Towards a Safer World' day, wherein regional experts presented, shared and debated best practices in disaster risk reduction for pandemics and comparable threats.

The Central Fund for Influenza Action (CFIA) is a multi-donor trust fund established in 2006 to finance urgent under-funded priority actions of the UN System Consolidated Action Plan for Avian and Human Influenza (UNCAPAHI) strategic framework.

The first phase of Towards A Safer World was a data collection exercise from October 2010 to June 2011. Teams representing different disciplines documented the primary achievements and lessons of pandemic preparedness efforts of the past five years under 11 thematic headings. These teams developed documents that presented key achievements, lessons learned and recommendations for how to move forward. Discussion and presentation of the collected data took place at a conference hosted by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Rome on September 15‐16, 2011.