Lima, 27 September 2022 – More than 100 business leaders and public partners gathered in Lima to strengthen private sector engagement for crisis response in Peru. The high-level breakfast organized by Hombro a Hombro, the newest member of the OCHA-UNDP Connecting Business initiative (CBi), focused on preparedness activities for a potential earthquake. Peru’s geographic diversity is part of the country’s beauty, but also makes it prone to natural hazards, including earthquakes, flash flooding, landslides, volcanic activity, extreme temperatures, and more.
“We know most businesses have contingency plans for most types of disaster, but it’s essential to have a joint recovery plan that allows us to collectively act quickly when the terrible earthquake – due based on the seismic silence for over 200 years – finally happens,” said Juan Manuel Arribas, Executive Director of Hombro a Hombro.
It has been almost 300 years since a big earthquake decimated Lima, the capital city of Peru, and was followed by a tsunami that devastated the port city of Callao. This makes leaders in the country think that it’s not a question of “if” but “when” a next high-magnitude earthquake occurs. And when it does, a close collaboration between the Government, UN agencies, and the private sector will be key to a quick and efficient response, to save more lives.
Hombro a Hombro, a business association with over 100 members and with a focus on preparedness and response activities, officially signed its partnership agreement with CBi during the event. Florian Rhiza Nery, CBi Network Coordinator, told the participants that the partnership with CBi will enable technical and operational support, resource mobilization support, and best practice sharing while bringing Hombro a Hombro – and Peru – into a regional and global network for disaster management, among other benefits.
Elisa Trujillo, Executive Director of Centro Nacional de Apoyo para Contingencias Epidemiologicas y Desastres (CENACED) and ARISE Mexico and Rene Butch Meilly, President of the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF) shared best practices from their business associations, both CBi Member Networks. Peer-to-peer learning between countries sharing high vulnerability to disasters is a key component of the partnership with CBi.
One of the key outcomes of the event was a commitment by Hombro a Hombro and participants to develop a National Emergency Recovery Plan, coordinating across business sectors and to ensure complementarity with Government and UN agency plans.
You can access the recording of the event here, and read the official press release (in Spanish) here.