'PlanSmart Ready to Rebuild' App Launched to Expedite Disaster Rehabilitation, Recovery Plans

The "PlanSmart Ready to Rebuild" web application, a platform to "speed up and improve" disaster rehabilitation and recovery plans, was launched yesterday, as per a press release by the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) via Facebook on the same day.

It was debuted by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) through the Department of Science and Technology, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS), the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), and the OCD in collaboration with the World Bank.

The automated planning tool aims to reconfigure the planning processes of disaster risk reduction and management of local government units for more efficient planning and faster rebuilding. NDRRMC Executive Director and Civil Defense Administrator Undersecretary Raymundo Ferrer said that the app will help LGUs plan for "quick and resilient recovery" by autogenerating rehabilitation and recovery plans (RRPs) with science-based information and pro-forma templates.

The app is an upshot of DOST's GeoRiskPH Integrated Platform and the OCD's Ready to Rebuild (R2R) Program

"Through PlanSmart, it is my vision that we will have a geospatially-enabled Philippines where we evaluate data, time and location together for better analysis and decision-making," DOST Secretary Renato Solidum Jr. was also quoted as saying.

Over 400 participants from 137 LGUs in the National Capital Region, Region IV-A, Region V, Region VII, and Region XIII are expected to join the training program of the app's pilot run.