PESHAWAR - The fourth National Disaster Management Exhibition began at Sheikh Muhammad Taimur Academic Block, University of Peshawar here on Wednesday. As many as 51 stalls are on display in the two-day event from the national and international institutions, and organizations, dealing disaster preparedness and management in Pakistan. The exhibition is organized by the Centre for Disaster Preparedness and Management in collaboration with AFC- International and Pakistan Science Foundation.
Chairman National Disaster Management Authority Dr. Zafar Iqbal Qadar inaugurated the exhibition and visited the stalls. The key organizations participating in the event include UN Habitat, United Nations World Food Program, FATA Disaster Management Authority, Unicef, and various local and international NOGs dealing with disaster management.
Addressing the inaugural session, the Chairman NDMA said that the event is a good initiative in bringing disasters managers together to think and work for formulating a strategy for better disaster control. “Let’s admit that our country is lacking professional disaster managers to effectively prepare and more importantly manage manmade and natural disasters,” he added.  
He said, “We are adopting the Malaysian model of disasters preparedness and mitigation as a national policy. The National Policy of Disaster Risk Reduction is in the final stage of approval, besides the NDMA has prepared a ten-year plan for DRR as well,” he added.
Dr. Iqbal added, in order to address the scarcity of resource gap and trained manpower, the government is establishing disaster management institutions at the district level and for this purpose we are linking Rescue 1122, CDPM with volunteer and social activities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Earlier, Director CDPM Prof. Dr. Amir Nawaz Khan said that the centre is offering the standalone BS and M.Sc degree level programme from this year, besides one-year diplomas for disaster management practitioners in the country. He added that the centre is the first one of its kind in South Asia and presently 350 students are enrolled with us which would be available in the job market within two years.
The programme was attended by Dean Faculty of Numerical and Physical Sciences Prof. Dr. Muhammad Riaz, Country Director ACF International Onno Van Manen, Registrar Dr. Syed Fazli Hadi, Dean Faculty of Arts and Humanities Prof. Dr. Farooq Swati and good number of students.