As a consequence of the great disasters that took place in Latin America and the Caribbean during the last years, there is a generalized opinion that it is necessary to strengthen the response capacity in the region, in the Federation network as well as in every National Society.

Even though the Regional Delegations have been supporting the National Societies in the developments of their response and disasters preparedness capacity, some disasters have exhausted al available resources, jeopardizing long term programs and projects.

Besides, technical expertise at the regional level was scarce in the disaster administration, logistics, water and sanitation and telecommunications areas. On the other hand, it was not possible to incorporate all these expertise in each Regional Delegation on a generalized long term manner, nor when referring to human as well as economic resources.

PADRU Headquarters, Panama

With the idea of solving these issues and applying lessons learned in the past, as well as the recommendations made in several studies resulting from hurricanes Mitch and Georges and flooding in Venezuela, the idea of a Pan-American disaster response unit emerged for the fist time in 1999.

When developing a stronger response capacity at the regional level, the Latin America and the Caribbean context would obtain better support and better services in case of an important disaster; at the same time, the limited existing resources would be optimized.

Meanwhile, the work load for the regional delegations following a disaster would be reduced, thanks to the efforts that they would get in disaster response through PADRU, allowing regional delegations to focus more in supporting long term capacity building.