By Vinod Thomas

Director General
Independent Evaluation Group

The World Bank

Opinion Piece Special to The Economic Times

September 9, 2008

From the US Gulf Coast to eastern India, natural disasters are striking with increasing regularity and tenacity. Yet in most places, they are treated more as a disruption to development than a foreseeable obstacle to progress.  Urgently needed is a change in approach. It is not enough to merely think of relief after a disaster strikes. Policy leaders, both national and local, must also anticipate and deal with them ahead of time. 

For such a shift in approach, there needs to be a change in attitude.  We must recognize the huge impact climatic change is having on weather patterns, hydro-meteorological phenomena, and the frequency, intensity and unpredictability of natural hazards. Without mitigation, these calamities will leave nations and people ever more vulnerable to devastation.  When unanticipated, damages are compounded, as recently in Myanmar, Philippines and elsewhere – and during the annual floods in East and North East India.  

Worldwide losses from natural disasters in the past decade were 15 times more than in the 1950s. In developing countries, far more people are located in harm’s way, with little capacity to absorb the damages. As a result of Kosi, more than 2.5 million people are affected in 1600 villages in Bihar, and 70, 000 people affected in the immediate shock in Nepal. India’s ranks 36^th in vulnerability to natural hazards; 50% of GDP accrues from areas at high risk; a third of the districts are hazard prone.

In this changed situation, we need to go beyond emergency relief and recovery to emphasize mitigation and adaptation too.   But what can be done concretely? Three areas deserve attention – prevention, preparation and planning.

When it comes to prevention, safeguarding the environment is a top priority.  Globally, abating carbon emissions is key to containing global warming and its impact on disasters.  Locally, it is vital to restore degraded environments. Replanting mangroves helped to lessen the ravages from a typhoon in Vietnam in 2000 or a cyclone in Andhra Pradesh southern India in 2002.

Prevention also involves decisions on human settlements and on building standards.  Experience in the US or India tell us that stronger flood protection systems are a critical necessity, including monitoring of levees, their repair and maintenance.  At times, the problem is less of a natural calamity than poor management, inadequate maintenance and inaction – leading to situations of disasters waiting to happen.

Preparation importantly includes investment in early warning systems, including across neighboring nations.  In Bangladesh in the early 1970s, a cyclone killed more than 300,000 people. But after the country put in an extensive early warning system, a recent cyclone of similar intensity took 3,000, not 300,000, lives. Preparation also involves risk transfer mechanisms, including insurance schemes, woefully lacking in many countries.

Planning disaster management is the other area of action.   Stronger coordination is needed across different levels of government, and with non-government actors and communities. Government units need management capacity, financial resources and information. Calamity funds are almost always inadequate to address a disaster, especially its prevention phase.

Essential is institutional accountability for disaster management, from ensuring certified standards and maintenance to the provision of disaster relief and reconstruction. Not only do local and central governments need to work hand in hand, but neighboring nations, such as those in South Asia, need to be on the same page on common solutions, for example, in establishing strategically identified and well-managed infrastructure.   

In essence, countries have often viewed efforts to mitigate natural disasters as a digression of resources from the priority for economic growth.   But the new reality indicates quite the opposite.  Unless preventive and precautionary measures are taken to reduce the risk of floods and related disasters, sustained growth will not be possible.