Countries in the Andean Region—Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela—are using pilot strategies to enhance disaster preparedness and mitigation and exchange knowledge and expertise, thus improving local level disaster response and coordination. A DIPECHO-funded project will collect risk management tools, models and methodologies that are currently available in the health and water and sanitation sector and that can be replicated by other communities in the Andean Region. At the same time, work will begin in two communities in Ecuador and Bolivia to develop new tools that will improve local response capacity and reduce the impact of disasters. To accomplish this, efforts will focus on integrating the work of the health and the water and sanitation sectors; implementing the “safe hospitals” initiative in the local health network and improving disaster response in local water and sanitation services. This capacity-building exercise will serve as an example for other Andean communities and the products created under this project will be available for dissemination wherever they may be used to strengthen health disaster management. For more information, contact Patricia Gomez at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..