Santo Domingo.- The National Office of Seismic Evaluation and Infrastructure and Building Vulnerability (
Onesvie), received the official visit of engineer América Benito, senior consultant in disaster risk reduction from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNESCO.
This international technical mission aims to strengthen the technical, institutional, and community capacities of the country, through the application of advanced methodologies such as VISUS, for risk reduction in infrastructure, in line with international safety and sustainability standards.
The meeting was led by the general director of Onesvie, Ing. Leonardo Reyes Madera, who held a technical dialogue with the international expert on the country’s capabilities and priority needs in terms of structural evaluation, safe infrastructure, and seismic risk management.
During her visit, the engineer was received along with Ing. Reyes Madera at the headquarters of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), where the following participated: Huascar Peña, representative of JICA in the Dominican Republic; Araki Joji, assistant to resident representatives of JICA; Shelí Figuereo, assistant in the Operations Division of JICA.
In addition, institutional exchanges were held with senior officials of the Dominican government, including: Luis Miguel De Camps, Minister of Education; Ing. Eduardo Estrella, Minister of Public Works and Communications; Representatives of the Vice Ministry of the Presidency; Juan Salas, president of the National Emergency Commission (CNE) and executive director of Civil Defense; Authorities of the Ministry of Housing and Buildings (MIVED); representatives of the General Directorate of Territorial Planning and Development (DGODT).
All the actors valued this technical visit as very positive and expressed their support for the Dominican Republic to be an active part of the second phase of the BERLAC project, an initiative promoted by UNESCO.
From his side, Eng. Leonardo Reyes Madera highlighted that this possible incorporation of the country will allow to enhance national technical training, strengthen the Dominican Structural Evaluators Network (REED) and move towards a safer, more sustainable infrastructure prepared for seismic events.
About the BERLAC program
BERLAC (Building Capacity for Disaster Risk Reduction in the Built Environment in Latin America and the Caribbean) is a project funded by the Japanese government and executed by UNESCO for three years in 6 Latin American and Caribbean countries, to strengthen institutional, technical, and community capacities to reduce disaster risks in the built environment.
Dominican Republic, was one of the countries included in the project with the aim of improving school safety. For this, two methodologies were used: VISUS (visual inspection) and a second methodology applied to artificial intelligence.
