Blog with us about the GPDRR13

How do you define a disaster? Here’s my view at the Red Cross Red Crescent.

I have a question I’d like to pose to you all. If a tsunami occurs where no one lives, is it a human catastrophe? No, I don’t think it is. But what if the tsunami occurs where there is a small community?

Well, I think it depends.

Were lives lost, was infrastructure heavily damaged, were people unable to function because of a lack of information and chaos? Or was the community prepared? Did early warning signals allow people time to get to high ground, were evacuation routes well-marked, was the school and hospital reinforced so there was little damage?

A disaster, in my opinion, is unmanaged risk. Where risks are anticipated and managed or mitigated, the impacts are reduced dramatically. But managing risk requires cooperation at every level – local, national and global – and the process of managing risk must be led by communities. We must prepare in order to manage both predictable and unpredictable risks, especially at the local level. For only those affected by the risks will understand them best.

From small villages to urban centres, Red Cross Red Crescent staff and volunteers work with communities to map and assess vulnerabilities as well as capacities that can be mobilized or strengthened in the face of hazards. The key is to empower people to become informed of the local disaster related risks they face and then to decide together on how to better prepare for them. The end result is a more resilient community, one that mitigates hazard, responds better and recovers more quickly together.

But this formula is only successful when every partner in our interconnected ‘local to global’ network is doing their part. At the national level this means governments dedicating resources and implementing laws for disaster risk reduction (DRR) – and then acting on them – so that at the local level words can translate into action with appropriate positive and negative consequences. A well-drafted law, for example, can prohibit hazardous behaviours such as the construction of unsafe buildings.

Since the launch of the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) in 2005 – the 10 year plan to make the world safer from natural hazards – we have witnessed some positive progress. For example, Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies are running disaster risk education programmes in about 50 countries. Additionally, Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies have reported an increase in the strengthening of domestic DRR legal and institutional frameworks in many countries. But funding still remains low.

At the 2009 Global Platform, States committed to increasing their DRR funding to 10 per cent of their total humanitarian relief budgets. This commitment has not been met. According to the Global Humanitarian Assistance Report released last year, the percentage of humanitarian relief dedicated to DRR in 2010 was only 4.7 per cent, virtually the same as in 2006. At this year’s Global Platform, I am hopeful that States will accelerate and act upon their commitment to this 10 per cent target.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has already taken swift action. Ten per cent of all of our emergency appeals are dedicated to DRR. We do this because it is a good investment. Our research shows that for every dollar spent on disaster risk reduction, anywhere from 2 to 55 US dollars can be saved in disaster response. Simply put, prevention saves lives and money.

Building community safety and resilience is not just about reinforcing physical infrastructure. Vulnerabilities, in other words barriers to community resilience, include factors like poverty and social exclusion. If a person is socially isolated, they have no connection to the community nor any opportunity to learn about risks or prepare for them. When a disaster strikes, their access to life-saving or recovery resources will be limited. Effective disaster reduction cannot be achieved when people lack the means to meet their basic needs such as food, health care, education or shelter. Development is crucially linked to DRR.

Along these lines, the Red Cross and Red Crescent has in fact been contributing to DRR throughout its existence. This year marks the 150 year anniversary of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. Every day since our inception we have worked to save lives, protect livelihoods and strengthen community response, recovery and resilience.

From the Red Cross volunteers who work with migrants in Canada to support their social integration and the 500 village development committees that Nepal Red Cross is helping to make disaster resilient, to the thousands of people participating in Red Cross food security programmes in Ethiopia and the integration of climate change adaptation into all IFRC programmes, DRR is in our DNA.

Over the next few days, world leaders will convene at the Global Platform to discuss the progress of the Hyogo Framework for Action and its framework post-2015. I myself will be urging decision makers to bolster their funding commitments to support long-term DRR programming with concrete targets and indicators. I remain positive and hopeful that we will build stronger alliances to build safer communities.