Dear colleagues,
Attached please find the "Opinion of the Conference", adopted by the
closing session of CDC-2001, The Second Tampere Conference on Disaster
Communications, 28 - 30 May 2001. The text will also be included in a new
edition of the folder on how to ratify the Tampere Convention, and a
print-out of this message will be mailed to those participants wo did not
indicate an e-mail address in their registration forms.
Let me, first of all, take this opportunity to express our gratitude to the
hosts of the conference, the chair persons of the sessions, the speakers
and panelists, the secretariat, all those who supported the event as
sponsors and organizers and the participants for their many contributions
to the discussions. I am sure to speak on behalf of all participants,
when I say that, once more, Tampere has been an ideal venue for a major
event.
CDC-2001 was a intended as a result-oriented conference, and as an
opportunity for networking. It has certainly fulfilled both expectations:
One visible result is the attached opinion of the conference, and the many
contacts established during the 3 days will positively influence the work
of all partners in the various sectors of Disaster Communications.
Presentations made during the conference, as well as the views expressed in
the closing session, will be posted on the CDC-2001 pages of the Emergency
Telecommunications website at URL http://www.reliefweb.int/telecoms in
the next days. We shall inform you as soon as the revised pages are
accessible. Meanwhile I would like to ask those presenters, who have not
provided a copy of their presentation in electronic format or in hard copy,
to do so by attaching the respective file(s) to an e-mail to me, or by
sending the text by fax to +41 22 917-0208. Thank you in advance for making
all the valuable information available also to those, who could not attend
the conference.
CDC-2001 was, however, only another step forward in our work towards the
full and un-hindered application of Telecommunications in the service of
international humanitarian assistance. The needs and intentions expressed
in the Opinion of the Conference must now be translated into action, and
this will need the support from all participants. Based on what we learned
in CDC-2001, the secretariat of the Working Group on Emergency
Telecommunications (WGET) shall now revise the existing Plan of Action for
the further implementation and ratification of the Tampere Convention, and
your comments and inputs to this document are very welcome.
In order to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas, we can either
use the existing e-mail list or we can set up
a separate list, for the direct follow up on the conference. Please let us
know what you prefer, and we shall announce the solution chosen in another
e-mail to all participants and the WGET partners and provide information on
how to subscribe.
So much as an immediate follow-up on last week's conference - again many
thanks to all of you, and let's continue our work on this increasingly
important subject.
Best regards,
Hans