Development of a Tentative Conceptual Framework and Upcoming Progress Meetings
A meeting was held via zoom on 29th March 2021 with the participation of the Global Disaster Resilience Centre [GDRC], University of Huddersfield, UK; University of Colombo, Sri Lanka and University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. The objective of the meeting was to gain inputs from partners to a tentative conceptual framework developed by GDRC on the key actors and processes involved in COVID-19 and other pandemic warning and dissemination processes. The conceptual framework, which is the main output of work package 01, has been developed with the intentions of 1) providing a common conceptual basis on the key actors and processes involved in COVID-19 and other pandemic warning and dissemination processes; 2) reflecting natural hazard/pandemics interface, and how Disaster Risk Reduction and resilience-building interventions can be re-oriented to meet the challenges of recent COVID-19 pandemic; 3) establishing baseline practices and capacities, challenges and gaps, and existing best practices on pandemic warning and dissemination processes and 4) developing systems thinking-based activities that can be piloted with relevant stakeholders to facilitate the articulation of connections. The conceptual framework is at its initial stages and is to be developed and refined further with inputs from all project partners including the Ministry of Health and Indigenous Medical Services, Sri Lanka.
Project partners also discussed ways in which consistency can be maintained across different work packages and the importance of doing so was acknowledged at said meeting. Accordingly, University of Colombo took up the task of exploring national level stakeholders and policy aspects that pertain to each of the concepts outlined in the tentative conceptual framework. A progress meeting with the participation of all project partners is to be held in April 2021. Inputs from partners on the progress made so far, challenges encountered and future activities of the project are to be discussed and agreed upon at this meeting. Images of project activities:
