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Tuesday, january 10, 2017
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ACCORDING to the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, there were 7,056 disasters recorded worldwide during the period 1996 to 2015. Natural hazards in the past 20 years killed 1.35 million people, more than half died in earthquakes and the remaining due to weather- and climate-related hazards.
In the Philippines, deaths caused by storms alone reached 15,880 during the period 2006-2015, significantly higher than the 3,970 storm deaths in the previous decade.
Clearly, the country should strengthen disaster risk management plans and programs to effectively reduce disaster mortality and eradicate poverty. It is critical that we strengthen our adaptation actions at national and local levels. Examples of these are preparing risk assessment, protecting ecosystems, improving agricultural methods, managing water resources, building settlements in safe zones, developing early warning systems, instituting better building designs, improving insurance coverage, and developing social safety nets.
The first of the seven targets of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction is the reduction of global disaster mortality. In the face of imminent threats and the new normal, we cannot do business as usual. The government should integrate the framework in its national and local plans and programs to achieve the following seven global targets: (1) reduce disaster mortality, (2) reduce the number of affected people, (3) reduce direct economic loss in relation to global GDP, (4) reduce disaster damage to critical infrastructure and disruption of basic services, (5) increase the number of countries with national and local DRR strategies, (6) enhance international cooperation to developing countries, and (7) increase the availability of and access to multi-hazard early warning systems and DRR information assessments.
We should manage disasters and risks so that natural hazards would not turn into disasters. Reducing disaster risk is key to poverty eradication and sustainable development.
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