Even as the world faces growing challenges such as major migration crisis, disease outbreaks, and climate change, only 40 cents in every US $100 of development aid is spent on preparing for disasters and making them less likely to happen, says the World Disasters Report 2016 released recently.
Prepared by the Indian Red Cross Society (IRCS) along with its global partners, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the report notes that millions of people around the world are exposed to predictable and preventable disaster risks because of a lack of investment to help them deal with threats, from earthquakes to storms and conflicts.
Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju on Saturday echoed similar statements while releasing the report here. The report indicates that 16.5 million people in India alone were affected by disasters in 2015. Of these, almost 14 million were impacted by floods in July and August, said to be the second largest disaster worldwide during the year relative to the number of people affected.
"We invest so much money in reconstruction. If we invest earlier, we would save one-third of total money that we spend after disasters. Investing money for checking disasters will help in reducing the loss and impact of natural calamities," he said.
"Earthquake, Tsunami cannot be prevented, but we can prevent ourselves from direct impacts of natural disasters. Structured measures and use of science and technology can reduce the impact of disasters," Rijiju added.
He cited example of technology in tracking a recently developing cyclone in the Bay of Bengal, which was going to hit the Odisha and Andhra Pradesh coasts when thousands of lives were saved by evacuating people from those areas before the cyclone struck the coasts.
Rijiju also said that involvement of local leadership is the key to success in combating the effects of disaster, as the different communities have different methods and skills to deal with the challenges and handle the effects.
Dr Veer Bhushan, joint secretary IRCS called for increase in investment in disaster reduction as only a faction of total international aid expenditure is funneled into risk reduction, with up to two-thirds of disaster spending occurring after a disaster happens.