A Brief Insight into the Project
Recent natural disasters world over have highlighted the vulnerability of societies to extreme events. It is now an international acknowledgement that efforts to reduce disaster risks must be systematically integrated into policies, plans and programmes for sustainable development and poverty reduction. The MICRODIS project locates itself within this framework.

The goal of the Project is to strengthen prevention, mitigation and preparedness strategies in order to reduce the health, social and economic impact of any natural disaster on communities. The outputs will include an evidence-base on impacts, field methodologies and tools for data compilation, impact models, and integrated vulnerability assessments. It will also strengthen standardized data collection of extreme events and their impacts at local, regional and global levels. Keeping in view the goal and outcome of the project, the focus is strictly on the direct and proximate effects of extreme events, namely floods, earthquake and windstorms on economies, societal drivers and health.Based on this mandate, health social and economic impacts been identified as the key thematic areas of research.

This integrated project involves partners from Asia and Europe, including research and ground roots institutions. These regions have been selected based on the frequency of extreme events and their impact on affected communities. The Microdis project, short for ‘micro analysis of disasters’, will be taking a grass-roots look at what happens to communities when a disaster occurs, and what factors make them more or less vulnerable. Its purpose is to reduce the impact of disasters by “devising strategies for prevention, mitigation and preparedness”. The research, with a total budget of €4.5m, will compare four countries in Asia and four in Europe. This project will help both the European as well as the Asian countries to learn from each other’s enormous experience in dealing with disasters. The Microdis project aims to develop a common global approach, both to carrying out research and to helping communities cope.

The first Annual Conference of MICRODIS project was organized from 17-20 February, 2008 at Delhi University, with the formal launch of the project on 21 February, 2008 at VHAI, New Delhi. Lt.General J.R.Bhardwaj, Member, National Disaster Management Authority formally inaugurated the launch. The launch was followed by numerous activities namely, an interactive and open session, giving an opportunity to all the participants and eminent guests to share their views and get an insight into the MICRODIS project, presentations by experts on disaster management and mitigation followed by  a meeting of  the members of the thematic groups. The conference brought together the partners from 12 countries to prepare for the next phase involving community-based surveys.

1. Final thematic group site selections completed and given to the coordinator. Each institution of the country team must be represented in this final discussion of site selection.
2. These sites should be determined and submitted to the Project Coordinator by each country team by April 18th, 2008. These will then be circulated amongst consortium members, along with the Principle Investigator (PI) assigned to each site chosen.
3. Country teams receive the final list of site selections from the coordinator shortly after this deadline.

1. Country teams finalize and complete their final list of sites
2. Final list of sites distributed to the consortium
3. Each Thematic Group to submit their questionnaires, research questions, conceptual models to the coordination team and Integrated Working Group by no later than April 18th and preferably before to allow for enough time for the IWG to complete their task before the training workshop in May.
4. Country teams finalize and complete their final list of sites
5. Final list of sites distributed to the consortium

1. Survey Coordinator Training Workshop in Hanoi, Vietnam.
2. The PI for each site will be expected to attend the Survey Coordinator’s Training Workshop in Hanoi, Vietnam from May 19-23, 2008. Each Survey Coordinator may bring along 1-2 people who will be working with them on their surveys and survey site training.