The Corporate Network for Disaster Response (CNDR) is a network of business groups, associations, corporations and corporate foundations whose objective is to rationalize and institutionalize disaster management efforts of the business community.

CNDR started in 1990 as a group coordinating the responses of the business sector for the Luzon earthquake. Since then, it has been CNDR’s institutional role to mobilize the sector for disaster response. In the event of disasters, the network is mobilized to conduct damage assessments, source relief goods and financial resources from donors. CNDR helps in organizing and coordinating the flow of relief goods and efforts and in the distribution of goods in coordination with the Local Government Units and NGOs based in the communities targeted for assistance. CNDR’s disaster response program also include disaster monitoring, volunteer mobilization during emergencies, formation of disaster volunteer teams among member organizations, publication of emergency response guidelines, systematization of emergency response, conduct of donors’ forum and emergency situation briefing, and provision of food and non-food relief items. CNDR also provides technical assistance to members who have separate disaster response initiatives.

It is noteworthy, however, that after almost two decades, the network has evolved into an institution rendering services not only for community disaster response but for the whole range of disaster management work that includes disaster preparedness and rehabilitation. Some of CNDR’s best practices include the USAID funded project “BAYANIHAN: Building Multi-Sectoral Partnerships for Sustainable Disaster Prevention, Mitigation and Preparedness” that enhanced the disaster preparedness capacities of communities in Pampanga, Compostela Valley, Davao del Norte and Negros Occidental.

CNDR is also managing two permanent resettlement sites in Pampanga that provides 708 housing units for the affected families of the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption. The Resettlement Assistance Project (RAP) also undertakes community projects most recent of which are street lighting, donation of road lots, and tile setting of Buensuceso chapel.

In 2005, CNDR ventured once more in disaster preparedness projects for the communities of Dingalan in Aurora province, Calabanga in Camarines Sur province and San Mateo in Rizal province. Said communities were among those that were severely affected by the series of typhoons that ravaged the country in late 2004.

Apart from services to communities affected by disasters, CNDR’s thrusts include service to the business sector. Primarily, the network assists its members in the development of appropriate disaster response programs for implementation, research and publication and information exchange with established disaster agencies, member corporations and foundations. Outside its membership the network provides venues to raise business sector awareness on disasters bringing to the forefront the framework of business continuity planning as the sectors primary tool for disaster preparedness.

Noting as well that responding to disasters is becoming a popular venue for corporate social responsibility, CNDR aims to guide its members and partners to become responsible and sensitive responders. More importantly, CNDR intends to develop the sector as a more proactive stakeholder stressing, above all, the necessity of community-based disaster preparedness.

Towards these ends, CNDR will continue to mobilize the sector envisioning empowered communities, prepared for, and able to cope with, disasters.