CAPRA Workshop 2008

The Central American Probabilistic Risk Assessment (CAPRA) initiative was launched in Managua, Nicaragua on February 21-22, 2008. The occasion was a two day workshop on Probabilistic Disaster Risk Assessment and Financial Protection organized by the Centre for Coordination of Prevention of Natural Disasters (CEPREDENAC), the United Nations, secretariat for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) and the World Bank.

CAPRA seeks to develop tools for identifying and communicating the sources and concentrations of loss from adverse natural events on a community. Through a regional GIS platform with national chapters and national nodes, CAPRA will enable policymakers to take informed actions to reduce risks in the region.

In order to do so, CAPRA establishes appropriate standards and methodologies for probabilistic risk evaluation, and incorporates state of the art models into a geographic information platform. The applications that CAPRA will enable are designed as part of the Hyogo Framework of Action, and aim at strengthening the national and regional capacity on disaster risk management, with an emphasis on enhancing risk mitigation strategies and financial strategies for disaster protection.

The first phase of the CAPRA initiative begins in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, with planned expansion to the rest of the region in following phases. As part of this work, consultants together with national governments and institutes will review existing information on hazards, exposure and vulnerability in order to establish the basis for the modeling platform, and to begin planning for the national repositories of such data. This phase will also involve ongoing capacity building and dialogue with countries for creating a flexible architecture for CAPRA that establishes regional standards and inter-operability whilst meeting the needs of individual countries.

The working parties at the workshop agreed to work together in developing CAPRA by establishing mechanisms to move forward operationally.

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