Nepal bearing brunt of natural disasters
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KATHMANDU, NOV 11 -
The poor and vulnerable countries like Nepal face the brunt of natural hazards compounded by often distorted policies, according to a report released on Thursday.
The 250-page report on "Natural Hazards, UnNatural Disasters: The Economics of Effective Prevention" was released in Washington by the United Nations and the World Bank (WB) on Thursday.
The report is the culmination of a two-year effort by 70 experts from various disciplines and institutions, primarily economists but also climate scientists, geographers, political scientists, and psychologists.
The report says that there were 3.3 million deaths from natural hazards in the 40 years to 2010 and almost one million people died in Africa's droughts alone.
The most vulnerable countries in particular require strengthening of their observing networks and infrastructure to establish effective early warning systems to warn their population against disasters, it said.
According to the report, the annual global losses from natural resources could triple to US $185 billion by the end of this century, even without calculating the impact of climate change. "Climate change could then add $28-$68 billion more in damages each year from tropical cyclones alone.
"We, and our partners in the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), stand ready to scale up efforts to assist disaster-prone developing countries in addressing this threat to the safety and livelihoods of poor people,” said World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick.
The report also outlines a number of measures to prevent death and destruction from natural hazards such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and flooding. One area where the report calls for more spending is on early warning systems, particularly weather forecasting.
The property damage between 1970 and 2008 totaled $2,300 billion (in 2008 US$), with earthquakes and droughts causing most of the losses. Damages are disproportionally high in poor and middle-income countries.
Posted on: 2010-11-11 08:57
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