European NGOs’ Proposals to Improve Disaster Preparedness in Co-operation with the EC

At the end of March 1998, two of the main European NGO networks, VOICE (focused on Humanitarian Aid) and EuronAid (focused on Food Aid and Food Security), organised a 2 day seminar in Brussels on Disaster Preparedness with El Ni?o as casestudy. Based on our experiences in the El Niño crisis and on the constructive debate engaged in during the seminar, this paper aims to introduce the proposals of NGOs in order to develop coherent mechanisms for co-operation between NGOs and the European Commission in future crises and thus improve our effectiveness.