The Head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) Margareta Wahlstrom urged participants to recognize that the current response and management of environmental disasters is no longer sufficient, during Thursday's Asia-Europe Parliamentary Partnership Meeting (ASEP-7) held in Vientiane, Laos.

Wahlstrom was a lead speaker in the panel on Social and Environmental Matters focusing on disaster management. She took the opportunity to outline the already considerable economic and social costs of disasters and suggest the adoption of new measures to mitigate these costs and risks.

"In 2011 alone economic losses in Asia-Pacific were 294 billion US dollars, representing 80 percent of the global losses worth 366 billion dollars," Wahlstrom said. Wahlstrom noted the considerable groundwork in disaster risk reduction made so far through agreements such as Hyogo Framework of Action (HFA) in 2005 which is the first international accepted framework for disaster risk reduction.

"Disaster risk reduction has been identified as an important tool for reducing the impact of climate change in poor countries and communities," Wahlstrom explained.

Wahlstrom suggested the participants consider the adoption of further measures to guard against the dangers of environmental disasters, such as strengthening risk governance, encouraging investment resilience and comprehensive disaster loss accountancy. She also called on parliamentarians to pay close attention to policy and legislation development and fostering social demand for greater risk reduction.

ASEP is part of partnership process between Asia and Europe and serves as a forum for inter-parliamentary contacts, exchanges and diplomacy among parliaments, and to promote mutual understanding among the people and countries of Asia and Europe, provides a link between parliaments of Asia and Europe and ASEM.