IFRC Disaster Law supports countries in the Indian Ocean to advance their national disaster laws. We have worked with Mauritius and Seychelles to finalise disaster management related legislation, and with Madagascar in the finalisation of an International Disaster Response Law (IDRL) study.
We have continued work with the French Red Cross’ Plateforme d’intervention régionale de l’océan Indien (PIROI), to promote International Disaster Response Law (IDRL) in the Indian Ocean as well as Tanzania and Mozambique. In 2020, PIROI finalised a study of legal frameworks to facilitate and regulate international disaster response in the Union of the Comoros, Mayotte and Reunion, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles and Tanzania.
In 2021, The Indian Ocean Regional Intervention Platform of the French Red Cross (PIROI) and IFRC Disaster Law organised a three day virtual workshop on the facilitation and regulation of international disaster assistance for South-West Indian Ocean countries. This workshop was designed to support key stakeholders from countries of the South-West Indian Ocean in the integration of IDRL and related standards, to facilitate international disaster assistance in their context and strengthen the design of a regional strategy to facilitate and regulate cooperation in international assistance. The workshop was attended by national society staff from Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius and Seychelles as well as government representatives from Comoros, Madagascar, and Mauritius.
IFRC Disaster Law also embarked on a research project to map the status of the auxiliary role in domestic legal frameworks as well as to map the legal arrangements for Disaster Risk Management in Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius and Seychelles. This activity formed part of a larger exercise to identify and analyse the legal and policy arrangements for the auxiliary role and disaster risk management across the continent.
Initial meetings with PIROI were held to identify potential collaboration avenues to achieve the objectives of the Resilience building and Disaster Response Management in the Indian Ocean (RDRM-IO) programme, focusing on the institutional and regulatory frameworks for DRR in Small Island Developing States (SIDS), and improving disaster risk governance.
