IFI Action Plan

The third meeting of the Advisory Committee (AC) and Management Committee (MC) of the International Flood Initiative (IFI) was held at ICHARM on 2 October 2008. The main agenda of this joint meeting was to propose the IFI Action Plan.   Following the review of the IFI mapping activities exercise, the discussion on the IFI Action Plan went to emphasize the role of the initiative in synthesizing what we already know on flood issues and translating available research and studies to an understandable format for flood policy makers. In order to formulate sensible IFI outcomes, three types of IFI products were proposed: 

- IFI briefs: About 2 pages (at most 4 pages); a brochure-type multilingual publication to communicate flood issues and available solutions to governments and policy makers. They can be in a printed format or web-based. 

- IFI reference series: A kind of guidebooks and manuals to fulfill gaps and elaborate in detail on flood issues and solutions for practical use with respect to ongoing activities at WMO and various other available texts. 

- IFI web tutorials: web-based education and training with respect to the available e-courses at UNU and UNESCO-IHE. 

In order to promote the exposure of IFI activities, it was agreed that the IFI Secretariat at ICHARM should publish IFI newsletters and periodical reports. They can be distributed using the UNESCO-IHP network as well as WMO-CHy and other relevant networks. The next meeting of the IFI AC/MC will be held at Geneva-WMO Headquarters on the occasion of the 2^nd Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (16-18 June 2009). 

The coordinator of each main theme will formulated draftof Action Plan. The coordinator of each main theme based on the consensus in the first meeting are as follow:

a) Research: IAHS and IAHR  

b) Education and Training: UNESCO 

c) Information Networking: UNU 

d) Technical Assistance: WMO 

Research: focused on all aspects of flood management in an inter-disciplinary manner will promote and support the sustainable development and management of river basins as well as serve the needs of local communities. This will require close cooperation at different scales between various sectors and research communities. Close coordination and synergy with other on-going international programmes, such as those of IFNet, IAHS-PUB, Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX), Flow Regimes from International Experimental and Network Data (FRIEND), International Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and others is foreseen.

Information networking: which incorporates both existing networks and/or disciplinary areas not yet networked will be developed between various stakeholders, to provide open access to data, information, knowledge and best practices. These will, inter alia, provide clearing house services for flood management-related technologies - at the household or regional level - and provide access to flood data as well as to multi-lingual international bibliographic databases. Metadata networks to link all stakeholders - connecting the technical, relief and insurance communities - will also be developed.

Education and training: related to all aspects of flood management will focus on formal and non-formal education at all academic levels - from primary school to graduate seminars. The initiative will also assist with on-the-job training. These activities are intended for a wide audience and not only the technical community. The scope of training will help educate community leaders, opinion makers, journalists and media professionals, while also helping to sensitize policy makers, diplomats dealing with international water issues, law-makers, and politicians to flood management issues. The training agenda will be designed to form part of the UN Decade on Education for Sustainable Development. knowledge institutions, which are part of the educational arm of the UN system, notably ICHARM, will be encouraged to take part in this endeavor.

Technical assistance: will develop local capacity and provide help where it is needed. Technical assistance activities will range from local support for empowering communities to assisting national governments in establishing comprehensive national flood management plans, as part of the overall national integrated water resources management strategy.