ESCAP/WMO Typhoon Committee Annual Review 1991

Under the auspices of ESCAP and WMO, the Typhoon Committee was constituted with a view to promoting and co-ordinating efforts for minimizing typhoon damage in the ESCAP region. The incipient stage of the Typhoon Committee dated back to 1964 when the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE)* at its twentieth session recommended that the Secretariat, in co-operation with WMO, should study the practical means of initiating a joint programme of investigations of typhoons in the ECAFE region. Accordingly, a meeting of the Working Group of Experts on Typhoon was organ­ized by ECAFE and WMO with financial assistance from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Manila in December 1965. Noting the extensive damage caused by tropical cyclones in the region, the meeting recommended that a Preparatory Mission on Typhoons be organized to visit the coun­tries in the ECAFE region and neighbouring countries affected by tropical cyclones, in order to formulate an action programme to mitigate typhoon damage. It also recommended that a second meeting of experts be convened to examine the report of the Mission.