Avoid disaster in a dangerous world

For Malawians, Cyclone Freddy was an unmitigated disaster. In March this year, the storm ripped through the African country twice during its devastating month-long track through southern Africa.

A period of unprecedented severe weather events would be difficult for any country to deal with, but for Malawi, one of the most developing countries in the world, it is destroyer. Hundreds of people died, more than half a million people were displaced, and thousands of hectares of crops were destroyed.

By early April, hundreds of people were missing, and some 1.1 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance. The typhoon struck during Malawi’s worst outbreak of malaria in two years, adding to the pressure on an already stretched health system.

In the same month, a group of independent UN rights experts called for more humanitarian aid, but also for Malawi to “develop appropriate solutions to prevent, reduce, and combat disaster displacement through face-to-face adaptation measures.” day, preparedness and disaster risk reduction.”

© Unsplash/Shengpengpeng Cai

A woman is tested for COVID-19 in Shenzhen, China.

More pain, cost, and deadly disasters

The impact of Freddy is just one example of the growing number of complex and costly disasters affecting increasing numbers of people, which prompted 187 countries to sign the international disaster risk reduction agreement in 2015.

The Sendai Protocol, named after the Japanese city in which it was adopted, is an international UN agreement designed to reduce disaster losses. It aims to significantly reduce deaths from disasters, reduce disaster damage to infrastructure, and improve early warning systems – all by 2030.

However, eight years later, little progress has been made: according to the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), an 80 percent increase in the number of people affected by disasters since 2015. What’s more, UNDRR found that many lessons from past tragedies seem to have been ignored.

© UNICEF/Muhammad Sohail

An eight-year-old girl stands near a flooded school in Quetta, Pakistan.

Half-time report

From 18 to 19 May, a High Level meeting at the UN Headquarters in New York will provide an opportunity to set out the many challenges that have stalled progress, and outline a path to a safer world.

Representatives at the event will have published on the report of the Midterm Review of the implementation of the Framework, which explains the extent of the problem. Released in April to mark the half-way point between the launch of the Framework and the 2030 deadline, it does not make for comfortable reading.

The report emphasizes the growing effects of climate change since 2015, and the dire inequality consequences, which are worst in developing countries; A case in point is the floods in Pakistan in 2022, which affected more than 33 million people and destroyed millions of acres of agricultural land, causing widespread food insecurity.

The growing interconnectedness of global societies, communities, and technology means that disasters can spread rapidly. The report points to the COVID-19 pandemic as a prime example, starting as a local outbreak in China in 2019, before spreading around the world, leading to the death of some 6.5 million people by the end of 2022.

Mami Mizutori, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction and head of the UNDRR organization said: “It is not necessary to quickly look for examples of how disasters are getting worse. “The sad truth is that many of these disasters can be prevented because they are caused by human decisions. The call to action of the Midterm Review is that countries need to reduce risk in every decision, action, and investment they make.

Less than half of the least developed countries and a third of Small Island Developing States have a multi-hazard early warning system.

Leading countries

Clearly, not enough is being done: the costs of disasters continue to rise, but funding for disaster risk reduction is not rising anywhere near the rate needed to address them.

Nevertheless, as the report shows, there are many examples of countries, at the national level, that are establishing programs to protect their citizens from the risk of disaster.

To date, disaster preparedness programs have been established in 125 countries. They range from the law in Costa Rica that allows all companies to allocate budgets for prevention and emergency response, to the Reserve Fund Australia’s Disaster Community, which will invest up to A$200 million per year from 2023 – 2024 in disaster prevention and resilience initiatives, and the Barbados disaster Clause that allows for debt to be frozen immediately in the event of the economic impact caused by the disaster.

And, while the number of people affected by disasters is going up, the percentage killed is more than half. The disaster-related death rate in the decade 2005-2014 was 1.77 per 100,000 world population, and in the decade 2012-2021 it has dropped to 0.84 (barring the impact of COVID-19).

The recommendations contained in the Mid-Term Report, and the measures taken at the national level will form the basis of the discussions at the High-Level Meeting: they are proof that a safe world is achieved, between now and 2030 , if necessary. investments in risk reduction are made.