Since its establishment in 2005, the ESCAP Trust Fund for Tsunami, Disaster and Climate Preparedness has contributed significantly to the progress made in building a regional tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean. In 2011, a key milestone was reached with the operationalization of the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (IOTWS), which was established through the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (IOC-UNESCO).

In March 2013, the regional service providers, Australia, India and Indonesia, assumed full responsibility for issuing international tsunami bulletins for the Indian Ocean, another major milestone. The Fund was one of the many contributors to this new system, in particular through support for the adaptation of standard operating procedures (SOPs) for tsunami warning and emergency response, training and other capacity building at regional, national and local levels, and the establishment of the Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System for Africa and Asia (RIMES).
The Fund's support for member States with limited capacity, delivered via partners such as RIMES, the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) and UNDP, remains in high demand, particularly among countries facing high risk and limited domestic capacity. RIMES, which was created through a project supported by the Fund, provides a range of cost-effective products and services including tsunami watch services, weather prediction and localized hydro-meteorological risk information within the framework of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

At the national level, some of the most valuable and sustainable results of the Fund's projects involve the strengthening of monitoring and warning services. The Fund helped establish four sea-level stations in the Philippines and Viet Nam, and four seismic stations in Myanmar, the Philippines and Viet Nam, filling key gaps and significantly strengthening early warning systems at national regional levels. Today, data generated from these stations are not only shared nationally and regionally, but also globally via the WMO's Global Telecommunication System and the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) through RIMES, respectively.

Following the completion of the above-mentioned activities, which also included training and technical support, the respective Governments of Myanmar, the Philippines and Viet Nam have taken over the ownership, management and maintenance of the sea-level and seismic stations established with Fund support, thus making the projects' achievements sustainable over time.