News

Partnerships are key, say disaster risk reduction experts

Dr Maarten van Aalst from the Red Cross emphasised the importance community partnerships.

Genuine interdisciplinary research, a stronger focus on community engagement and innovative ways of translating evidence into practice are needed to reduce the widespread loss of life and economic damage caused by natural disasters.

Building better links with industry, particularly insurance companies, should also be a priority.

That was the message from the UK 'disasters' community at a conference to mark UN International Day for Disaster Reduction Research on 13 October 2010.

Over 150 NGOs, researchers and policy makers gathered at the Royal Society in London to identify better ways to coordinate and collaborate with each other to tackle the impact of climate or environmental change on their disaster risk reduction work.

Video playlist will go in here

UN perspective

Keynote speaker Andrew Maskrey, Senior Coordinator for the UN Global Assessment Report on Disaster Reduction, opened the day with findings from the 2009 assessment report, which highlights the "growing, global problem of natural disasters, both for social and economic development."

He explained how risk is unevenly distributed between countries with different levels of social and economic development. For example, Japan and the Philippines face similar exposure to earthquake threats but the predicted mortality for the Philippines if an earthquake struck is 17 times that of Japan, a developed country. The difference can be as great as 200:1 in some smaller developing nations.

The second session was chaired by Professor Gordon McBean, Chair of the ten-year Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) programme, which is due to launch its new headquarters in Beijing next month.

Dr Roger Few, a social scientists from the University of East Anglia described a planned project to review international support for research on societal impacts of hazards. He called on the audience to feed their knowledge and suggestions into the project, which will be completed in early 2011.

Climate change

Next was the launch of the Climate Smart Disaster Risk Management approach (CSDRM) by the Strengthening Climate Resilience programme at the Institute for Development Studies. Integrating perspectives from a range of disciplines, the new method focuses on three 'pillars': tackle changing disaster risks and uncertainties; enhance adaptive capacity and address poverty & vulnerability and their structural causes.

Dr Maarten van Aalst from the Red Cross and Dr Belinda Benett from Christian Aid gave their perspectives on the growing role of climate change mitigation and adaptation in the development agenda, noting the importance of focusing efforts at the community level.

Successful partnerships

Sharing experiences: delegates joined the session discussions.

Enhanced Learning and Research for Humanitarian Assistance (ELHRA) brought to life their work facilitating partnerships between NGOs and academics with two case studies: Professor John McClosky from the University of Ulster described his successful collaboration with Concern Worldwide in earthquake-prone West Sumatra, and Professor David Sanderson from Oxford Brookes University outlined his work improving post-disaster shelter capacity of NGOs in conjunction with Care International UK.

ELHRA Director Jess Camburn also announced a new Humanitarian Innovation Fund, which will support organisations working in countries struck by humanitarian crises to develop, test and share new technologies and processes.

Alongside the conference was an exhibition hall with 13 organisations profiling their work in disaster risk reduction. Exhibitors included Christian Aid, the Wellcome Trust, the Health Protection Agency, the Disasters Journal and the Disaster and Development Centre at Northumbria University.

Outputs of the conference will be fed into the House of Common’s inquiry into scientific advice and evidence in emergencies review and used to inform the DFID Humanitarian Emergency Response Review.

View photos from the event.

Videos and a conference report will be available shortly.