Melbourne hosted WCDEM-13 in May 2003 when Congress participants endorsed a Melbourne Statement with five actions. Twenty years on, WCDEM-22 in Ireland provides an opportunity to reflect on the impact of the Melbourne Statement.

A desktop review of Congress and subsequent documents informed by the personal experiences of the co-authors, who contributed to the Local Organizing Committee for the Melbourne Congress and/or subsequently through the WADEM Oceania Chapter.

The WADEM Education Sub-committee, co-chaired by a Melbourne member, followed through with one of the key actions from the Melbourne Statement: “WADEM will promote international professional standards and education programs for persons involved in disaster prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery.” The Education Sub-committee held a series of European meetings, resulting in an international meeting in Brussels in 2004 producing ‘International Guidelines and Standards for Education and Training to Reduce the Consequences of Events that May Threaten the Health Status of a Community’. This was presented to the 2005 WCDEM in Edinburgh, and later published in PDM (2007), thereby meeting a second action from the Melbourne Statement. However, this energetic, collaborative, and productive process subsequently ‘failed to thrive.’ The influence of three further Melbourne Statement actions, were harder to analyze. WADEM members in Australia led other identifiable actions e.g. formation and leadership of the WADEM Oceania Chapter (2008); a National Framework for Disaster Health Education in Australia (2010); and Teaching Emergency and Disaster Management in Australia: Standard’s for Higher Education Providers (2017).

The insightful Melbourne Statement reflected the times and led to identifiable, but limited, WADEM outcomes. Congress participants endorsed an Outcomes Statement at WCDEMs in Edinburgh (2005) and Amsterdam (2007) but not at subsequent WCDEMs. Outcome Statements have become commonplace in professional congresses, and it may be timely to re-introduce Congress Statements as a feature of future WCDEMs.