Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters

On March 10th, the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association co-hosted a Global Cooperation and Training Framework (GCTF) virtual workshop with the theme of Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Taiwan), the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and the British Office Taipei and Chief Representative, Hiroyasu Izumi gave a speech at the opening ceremony.

On March 11th, it will be 10 years since the Great East Japan Earthquake and it is very meaningful that we are able to hold the first GCTF workshop of the year at the juncture of 10 years with the theme proposed by Japan, Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters. In today’s workshop, we welcomed the speaker, Haruo Hayashi, President of the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience from Japan and he spoke about Japanese knowledge of disaster prevention and risk reduction. It should be noted that we are planning to hold a workshop on Building Disaster Resilience at Global and National Levels in September this year and we are implementing a trial for the first time in GCTF to further regular discussions between experts from each country in order to make this even more meaningful.

In addition, at this GCTF workshop, thanks to cooperation from Taiwan, the US, and the UK, we offered up silent prayers for the victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake and were given the opportunity to show a video of the current Tohoku region and how it is recovering. We would like to take this opportunity to once again thank everyone, including the people of Taiwan, who supported us at that difficult time.

Videos of the Tohoku recovery

・Fukushima Prefecture


・Miyagi Prefecture


・Iwate Prefecture



This time the British Office in Taipei is co-hosting for the first time and the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association intends to continue to cooperate in order to encourage as many partners as possible to participate in GCTF.

The speech from Chief Representative Izumi follows.

Foreign Minister, Joseph Wu

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

Good afternoon!
Two years have passed since Japan joined the GCTF as a “full partner” in 2019. During the past two years, we have co-hosted fourteen workshops in total. I am delighted to see that our cooperative relations with Taiwan and the United States grow deeper and even stronger.

The topic of today’s workshop – “Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters” – was proposed by Japan. I would like to extend my warmest welcome to our new partner – the British Office Taipei – at the first workshop of this year and sincerely appreciate that we can hold this workshop in March – the same month as the Great East Japan Earthquake struck. Ten years ago, on March 11th, 2011, the huge earthquake and the subsequent massive tsunami caused immense damage in Japan.

As Japan is prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunami, we have put great effort into disaster prevention. In fact, the Great East Japan Earthquake caused little damage to buildings. Most of the damage was caused by the unprecedented tsunami of nearly 20 meters in height.

In the wake of the disaster, Japan received the support of rescue teams, such as “Operation Tomodachi” of the US military, and tremendous donations from Taiwan, the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries. This experience made us acknowledge, once again, the bonds of friendship we have with your countries. The Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association is now running a "Japan-Taiwan Friendship" campaign to convey our gratitude to the Taiwanese people. Despite all the difficulties caused by the earthquake, the people of Tohoku are getting back on their feet and moving forward. We witnessed their strong will for the reconstruction of their homeland. I will show you what the current Tohoku region looks like today in a video later.

Since the disaster, Japan has established the "National Resilience Promotion Headquarters" to work on measures for preventing and mitigating disasters and announced the "Sendai Cooperation Initiative for Disaster Risk Reduction" to share our knowledge and technology by promoting "Build Back Better" measures in other countries.

I hope that fruitful discussions will be held at today's workshop at which Dr. Haruo Hayashi, President of the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience, will serve as the keynote speaker. Moreover, in a new initiative, experts from Japan, Taiwan and the United States will continue discussions to make our next seminar scheduled this September more meaningful.

Although there are various restrictions due to the pandemic, I hope to further develop the GCTF by incorporating new initiatives. Last, but certainly not least, I wish to express my sincere thanks and gratitude to the National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction and all other people involved for all their efforts in organizing this workshop.

Thank you.