The Southeast Asia (SeA) region is highly vulnerable to the impacts of natural hazards. Hydrometeorological hazards, such as strong winds, floods, or droughts, and subsidiary hazards such as landslides, pose a direct threat to lives and, impact livelihoods by damaging and destroying infrastructure, assets and land. Underlying processes, including climate change impacts, population growth, land use change, and urbanisation patterns, are resulting in an increase in the number of people, infrastructure systems and services, livelihoods and assets in Cambodia and Lao PDR at risk from hydrometeorological hazards.
Although the governments of both Cambodia and Lao PDR continue to establish policies and mechanisms to help reduce and/or avoid some of the impacts of extreme events and disasters, significant challenges remain. Hence, in both countries, immediate preventive action is required to in order to accelerate the resilience of vulnerable populations. Therefore, the project will be jointly implemented by WMO, WB and UNDRR supporting the NMHSs and NDMOs of Cambodia and Lao PDR, respectively, in collaboration with other relevant stakeholders at the local, national and regional level to support this.