UN kicks off discussions on new international blueprint for disaster risk reduction
GENEVA, 5 March 2012 - The UN Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, and HE Yoichi Otabe, the Japanese Ambassador to the International Organizations in Geneva, announced today the start of consultations on a new international blueprint for reducing disaster losses in advance of the World Conference on Disaster Reduction which the Japanese government is proposing to host in 2015.
The new framework for disaster risk reduction will build on the success of the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities in spreading a culture of disaster prevention around the globe. The Hyogo Framework was agreed at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction held in Kobe in Hyogo Prefecture in January 2005 on the tenth anniversary of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995, and a month after the Asian tsunami.
Ms. Wahlström said: "As we look to the anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, the start of consultations on the post-HFA framework is a suitable occasion on which to acknowledge the debt that the world owes to Japan when it comes to sharing its vast experience and knowledge of disaster risk reduction and preparedness.
"The learning from the Great East Japan Earthquake will be a vital contribution to preparing the world to meet the challenges of disaster risk in the urbanized, globalized world of the 21st century where a natural hazard can trigger a chain of catastrophic events impacting lives and livelihoods in tragic ways unless we are realistic in our assessment of risk and act accordingly."
HE Yoichi Otabe said: "The Great East Japan Earthquake has provided us with further confirmation of the importance of disaster risk reduction as a critical global issue in the 21st century. Development is too often sidetracked and at times even reversed by disasters, so investing in disaster risk reduction and resilience supports sustainable development. We have seen a significant improvement in the political and economic commitment to reducing risk and increasing resilience since the Kobe World Conference in 2005 and hope that this will be enhanced as a result of Rio+20.
"The Hyogo Framework provides an analytical tool for gauging progress towards reducing disaster losses and encourages both strategic and action-oriented planning. Progress is being made but more needs to be done to help countries to address the causes of risk. Japan will hold an international conference in the disaster-stricken Tohoku region this summer to boost international cooperation on coping with natural disasters and to support discussions on establishing a post-HFA Framework. A new framework will help to mainstream disaster risk reduction into sustainable development policy after the Millennium Development Goals."
read in detail at :- http://www.cdrn.org.in/show.detail.asp?id=23330
Showing posts with label Natural Disaster Management Agency India. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Natural Disaster Management Agency India. Show all posts
Monday, March 12, 2012
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Adapting to Climate Change the Right Way
Faced with more frequent natural disasters caused largely by climate change, global and local decision-makers need to have greater foresight in their efforts to prevent and recover from future crises.
Tropical Storm Irene brought that need home brutally to Vermont, where authorities reacted earnestly but in ways which may worsen damage from future severe weather events. The storm caused little harm in urban areas of the mid-Atlantic and Northeast, so few expected the once-in-a-century flooding in rural upstate New York and Vermont that caused 56 deaths an estimated $10 billion to $15 billion in damage.
Although the damage was surprising, the causes behind it were not. For decades, scientists have warned that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions and the climate change they induce would result in weather extremes that grow more numerous and more intense. Climate change adaptation -- adjustments in natural or human systems in response to the impacts of climate change -- has thus become an international priority.
Such investments in adaptation make sense. Adaptation is necessary if communities and countries are to survive drastic changes in climate once environmental tipping points -- such as acidification of ocean, alteration of the Gulf Stream, or thawing permafrost -- are crossed.
Adaptation can also produce benefits beyond resilience to climate change, such as economic stability, improved environmental quality, community investment, and local employment. In many developing countries, climate change adaptation efforts are being integrated into strategies to reduce poverty. The Asian Development Bank has estimated, for instance, that every $1 invested in adaptation now could yield as much as $40 in economic benefits by 2030.
Global efforts are therefore underway to adapt in the face of droughts, rising sea levels, storms, and floods. The city of Perth in Western Australia, for example, is building a desalination plant to offset losses in water from declining precipitation. Planners in the Netherlands are constructing dikes, dams, and floating houses to cope with increased flooding and rises in sea level. Londoners are investing in a Thames River barrier system to better respond to floods.
Yet some of these interventions can have unintended, and dangerous, consequences. In Vermont, after Tropical Storm Irene, local and state officials allowed an unusual amount of dredging by heavy equipment in stream and riverbeds to collect gravel to help quickly repair roads. These actions, however, reduced the ability for ecosystems to lessen future flood surges, thus making those roads even more susceptible to storms and undermining the repair work itself.
Vermont is not alone in pursuing adaptation methods with unexpected consequences. In the Maldives, nicknamed the "flattest country on earth," poor coastal protection measures such as dredging to create sandbars and erecting seawalls have unintentionally reduced the flow of nutrients to coral reefs, weakening a natural shield against storm swells and surges. Coastal communities there have also removed vegetation to expand settlements and resorts and have mined sand for use in construction. These activities have increased the exposure of the Maldives to rising sea levels and floods. In Uganda, national leaders have planted thousands of hectares of fast-growing eucalyptus and pine trees to "sink" large amounts of carbon and create a buffer against strong winds. Such efforts, however, have inadvertently eroded the vitality of native forest ecosystems and displaced hundreds of communities from their livelihoods and land, lowering overall social resilience.
These examples -- and dozens more like them -- illustrate that sometimes the best intentioned adaptation efforts can increase environmental, economic, or social vulnerability. Part of the explanation may be the ad hoc and frenetic way local, state, and national officials sometimes respond to disasters. Following Tropical Storm Irene, some Vermont state policymakers were so overwhelmed that one local senator publicly announced that "the state became lawless for several weeks." He argued that Vermont's emergency policy amounted to a de facto "Do what you have to do and we'll sort it out later."
Economic incentives, some very understandable, can also play a role in the rush to action. The Ugandan tree planters mentioned above will receive millions of dollars for the carbon credits generated from their project. Vermont businesses, especially those involved in tourism, were anxious to see rapid road, bridge and other repairs completed before the fall foliage and winter ski seasons.
Good intentions, however, aren't enough. Climate change adaption efforts must meet the needs of the localities they intend to serve. The fact that such interventions are often done hastily should make us all the more diligent that they do not accelerate, rather than reduce, risk. Decisions made today on adaptation will greatly determine how vulnerable we are to future climate-induced events. Tropical Storm Irene was a powerful lesson that today's weather-related disaster can become tomorrow's humanitarian crisis.
The challenge now is to ensure that crisis recovery efforts rebuild for long-term resilience. After all, poorly designed and implemented investments in adaptation are worse than none at all.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Sustainability leader appointed Chairman of the Global Reporting Initiative
| Sustainability leader appointed Chairman of the Global Reporting Initiative |
Wednesday 30 November 2011 Sustainability leader and Worldconnector Herman Mulder has been appointed Chairman of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)’s Board of Directors. Herman Mulder is a member of the board of the Dutch National Contact Point (NCP) of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. Mulder is a former senior executive vice-president at ABN AMRO, and is now an independent board member with a focus on sustainable development issues. Mulder said of the appointment: “I am very honored and excited to be Chairman of the Global Reporting Initiative. We are witnessing a turning point for sustainability reporting, as it moves from an experimental pursuit to a mainstream practice. I look forward to leading GRI as it helps make sustainability reporting standard practice worldwide.” Mulder also worked in the field of livelihood development finance in India and Brazil, where he gained insights into the global value chain and the positive effects companies can have on people living in lower income countries. He explained, “I learnt how interconnected the world really is – from the farmers in Brazil to the coffee in your cup. It’s important to know our own value chain and recognize that imbalances can be a major issue.” “One of the lessons of the financial crisis is that we need much better transparency on more risks and opportunities,” added Mulder. “This is a global imperative. Governments, stock exchanges and investors should adopt a report or explain approach to policy, encouraging more organizations to report their performance. Notwithstanding recent significant progress in sustainability reporting using GRI’s Guidelines, many more companies should adopt advanced disclosure practices, addressing risks, opportunities, dependencies and impacts in their entire value chain. Moreover, investors should recognize that such disclosure is essential for them too: ‘use or lose’.” Mulder was appointed Vice-Chairman following the departure of Professor Mervyn King in October 2011, and has been Acting Chairman in the interim period. The Board of Directors resolved to appoint Mulder Chairman during their meeting on Friday 25 November 2011. GRI’s Board of Directors appointed Anita Normark as Vice-Chairman of the Board during the same meeting. Normark was General Secretary of the Building and Wood Workers International (BWI) from 2001 to 2009, and before that General Secretary of the Nordic Federation of Building and Woodworkers for 15 years. Working closely with the ILO, the focus of the BWI has been to implement globally recognized labor standards, and to promote sustainable development in the construction and wood and forestry sectors. Normark continues to promote sustainable construction developments as a consultant. On 6 October 2011, Professor Mervyn King was awarded the title of Honorary Chairman of GRI, after almost five years serving as Chairman of the Board of Directors. Professor King moved on to take up the position of Chairman of the International Integrated Reporting Committee (IIRC) on 1 October 2011. -Ends-
Lucy Goodchild
1. About the Global Reporting Initiative The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) produces a comprehensive Sustainability Reporting Framework that is widely used around the world, to enable greater organizational transparency. The Framework, including the Reporting Guidelines, sets out the Principles and Indicators organizations can use to report their economic, environmental, and social performance. GRI is committed to continuously improving and increasing the use of the Guidelines, which are freely available to the public. Website: www.globalreporting.org Herman Mulder is Chairman of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). He is Chairman of Social Equity Fund (SEF) and a board member of Utz Certified/Good Inside and the Dutch National Council for Development Cooperation & Sustainable Development (NCDO). Mulder is Dutch National Contact Point for OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (NCP-NL), a Trustee of Tomorrow’s Company (London), and on the board of Business in Development (BiD), Consensus Building Institute (CBI, Boston) and Social Micro Finance Technical Assistance Foundation (SMF-TA). He is also on the Steering Committee of the Worldconnectors. Mulder is a member of the Advisory Board of TEEB, the EU study task force on ‘The Economics of Ecosystems & Biodiversity’. He is co-initiator of the international ‘Hague Framework for Development Financing’, and of the SEWA/Haryiali/cookstove project. He is also a member of the judging panel of the FT/IFC Sustainable Bank Awards and of the VBDO Supply Chain Award. Mulder is recognized as a leader in development and ‘green’ financing, working on a number of innovative projects, marrying public sector aims with private sector/business interests. He is a frequent speaker and publicist. He is a Knight in the Royal Order of Oranje-Nassau for his work in sustainable development. From 1998-2006 Mulder was Director-General and Head of Group Risk Management of ABN AMRO Bank, the Netherlands. From 1995-1998 he was Head of Global Structured Finance at ABN AMRO. He led ABN AMRO in the period 1998-2006 to become the premier international bank in sustainable development. Initiator of the Equator Principles, Mulder created the ABN AMRO Foundation and was its first chairman. After his retirement Mulder was vice-chairman of the ABN AMRO India Foundation. Mulder has held senior advisory roles for the UN Global Compact, World Business Council on Sustainable Development, Club de Madrid, Taellberg Foundation, OXFAM NOVIB, Earth Charter International, Youth Employment & Sustainability (YES), and Business Steering Committee for UN Finance for Development. Read in detail at :- http://www.cdrn.org.in |
Friday, March 11, 2011
To build the resilience of nations and communities to disasters, we need equal and active participation of men and women in disaster risk reduction.
To build the resilience of nations and communities to disasters, we need equal and active participation of men and women in disaster risk reduction.
Type:News briefs
Date:8 Mar 2011
Source:United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Secretariat (UNISDR)
Language:English
Disasters affect men and women differently, and so we will continue to lobby for gender-sensitive vulnerability, risk and capacity assessments. Studies show that women’s vulnerabilities during and after disasters is linked to their role and status in society, making women and children 14 times more likely to die than men during a disaster.
At the same time, we will work towards increasing women’s understanding, knowledge and capacity on disaster risk reduction, and of its links with other development sectors. We will continue to encourage governments to invest in discovering women’s needs, so that women are better able to prepare for, and respond to, disasters.
However, advancing gender perspectives and women’s rights is not just a job for women – more men must advocate at a high level for the empowerment of women, and for the incorporation of gender budgeting into national and local development plans.
The United Nations has increased its leadership in gender issues and UN Women has been created for concerted action in promoting gender equality in and outside the United Nations system. For its part, the UNISDR secretariat has the mandate and responsibility for gender mainstreaming in disaster risk reduction, in line with the Hyogo Framework for Action adopted by 168 countries at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in 2005.
Making disaster risk reduction gender sensitive will secure the equal participation of men and women in policy making and policy implementation in disaster risk reduction, making it possible to achieve disaster-resilient nations and communities. And, as the frequency and impact of climate-related disasters increases, UNISDR is committed to building a culture of prevention that is founded on the specific needs, voices, roles, and potential of women, men, boys, and girls.
***********
Margareta Wahlström
Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Disaster Risk Reduction
March 2011
Related Links
UNISDR Publications: Gender and Disaster Risk Reduction
Contact Information
Other Details
UNISDR
9-11 Rue de Varemb
1202 Geneva, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 917 8908/8907
Fax: +41 22 917 8964
Type:News briefs
Date:8 Mar 2011
Source:United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Secretariat (UNISDR)
Language:English
Disasters affect men and women differently, and so we will continue to lobby for gender-sensitive vulnerability, risk and capacity assessments. Studies show that women’s vulnerabilities during and after disasters is linked to their role and status in society, making women and children 14 times more likely to die than men during a disaster.
At the same time, we will work towards increasing women’s understanding, knowledge and capacity on disaster risk reduction, and of its links with other development sectors. We will continue to encourage governments to invest in discovering women’s needs, so that women are better able to prepare for, and respond to, disasters.
However, advancing gender perspectives and women’s rights is not just a job for women – more men must advocate at a high level for the empowerment of women, and for the incorporation of gender budgeting into national and local development plans.
The United Nations has increased its leadership in gender issues and UN Women has been created for concerted action in promoting gender equality in and outside the United Nations system. For its part, the UNISDR secretariat has the mandate and responsibility for gender mainstreaming in disaster risk reduction, in line with the Hyogo Framework for Action adopted by 168 countries at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in 2005.
Making disaster risk reduction gender sensitive will secure the equal participation of men and women in policy making and policy implementation in disaster risk reduction, making it possible to achieve disaster-resilient nations and communities. And, as the frequency and impact of climate-related disasters increases, UNISDR is committed to building a culture of prevention that is founded on the specific needs, voices, roles, and potential of women, men, boys, and girls.
***********
Margareta Wahlström
Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Disaster Risk Reduction
March 2011
Related Links
UNISDR Publications: Gender and Disaster Risk Reduction
Contact Information
Other Details
UNISDR
9-11 Rue de Varemb
1202 Geneva, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 917 8908/8907
Fax: +41 22 917 8964
Managing floods through proactive governance
Managing floods through proactive governance March 2011
By N Vinod Chandra Menon
Indian officialdom is pioneering efforts to incorporate disaster management in development planning.
Art: Sworup Nhaisiju
Flood-preparedness measures are divided into structural and non-structural varieties. The former include embankments and related flood-protection walls, while the latter include measures such as zoning within floodplains, building shelters, raising the platforms of borewells and hand pumps above flood level, public-awareness campaigns and capacity-building for a range of preparedness. Forecasting and early-warning systems constitute another significant non-structural measure when dealing with flood-prone areas. In India, the Central Water Commission (CWC) has established a country-wide forecasting system, with alert information shared with all concerned state governments. During the monsoon season, data from 945 stations in the country’s 62 river sub-basins is collected, analysed and applied on a daily basis.
Let us start with a bit of historical context. During the British period, the agency mandated with disaster management in India was the Ministry of Agriculture, as the most frequent disasters in the Subcontinent were recurrent floods and famines. After Independence, the Ministry of Agriculture continued to play this role until as late as 1999, when an official review suggested formulating disaster-management plans at the national, state and district levels. One of the most significant recommendations included in the subsequent report of 2001 was to vest the Ministry of Home Affairs with responsibility for disaster management. Another important recommendation was to establish institutional mechanisms for disaster management, including an apex body at the national level and similar institutions at the state and district levels.
The Indian Ocean tsunami, in December 2004, was a major turning point in understanding the need for comprehensive disaster-management approaches. A year later, the government enacted the Disaster Management Act, following which the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA, of which this writer is a former member) was established and took on the apex role. The NDMA’s executive committee is headed by the home secretary, and its membership includes the secretaries of 14 key ministries; this body performs the tasks related to the implementation of the policy, plans and guidelines. The Disaster Management Act of 2005 also mandated the establishment of State Disaster Management Authorities (SDMAs), headed by the chief ministers of the states of India, as well as District Disaster Management Authorities (DDMAs), headed by district collectors and co-chaired by the elected representative of the respective zilla parishads.
Serious challenges still remain in disseminating alert and early-warning information to flood-prone communities themselves. With the spread of new telecommunication technologies, multiple communication channels are today being used to try to get this critical information ‘the last mile’. The CWC currently operates a network of 878 hydro-meteorological observation sites and disseminates flood forecasts, alert and early-warning messages through a countrywide network of over 500 wireless stations to district authorities; this is now buttressing telephone, telex, fax, satellite and VoIP (Internet telephone) facilities for communicating early-warning messages to various authorities. This has helped to reduce the loss of lives and disruption to livelihoods to a large extent.
From the district headquarters to taluka and tehsil levels, phone, fax and wireless communication is often used. From the tehsil headquarters to villages and smaller settlements, wireless, phone and mobile phones are used. At the very lowest level, even loudspeakers are used to spread evacuation messages. These multiple channels of communication have been used by various agencies to transmit alert and early-warning messages over the past several years. In the recent past, however, innovative approaches have also been attempted by civil-society organisations in several disaster-prone areas to disseminate these messages to the community level, deploying combinations of communication media, including wireless communication supplemented by public-address systems.
The CWC has also deployed automatic water-level-monitoring sensors and tidal gauges with satellite-based transmitters. These can transmit information on rising water levels to designated control rooms, which in turn communicate with district authorities who are tasked with alerting flood-prone communities. During monsoon season, these messages are sent two or three times a day – and during peak flood situations, even hourly. Agencies such as the Indian Meteorological Department, Ministry of Water Resources and Ministry of Earth Sciences also use remote sensing information to identify areas that are likely to be inundated, backed by scenario analysis and simulation models. The CWC uses 175 stations for flood forecasting, of which 147 are for river stage forecast and 28 stations are for flow forecast. These stations are spread over nine major river basins in the country. The 147 ‘river stage’ forecast stations use sensors to monitor the water levels in the rivers that flood regularly, and transmit messages to designated control rooms for onward transmission to government officials. The 28 ‘flow forecast’ stations are located at critical locations for monitoring the inflow into the rivers, especially from reservoirs that release water when their water level rises.
Heads together
Given the nature of Southasian rivers, floods in India are frequently the result of waters coming from across the borders in Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet/China and Bangladesh. An Indo-Bangladesh Joint River Commission, headed by the water ministers of both countries, has been functioning since 1972, tasked with monitoring all concerns related to common rivers. Since 1989, Kathmandu and New Delhi have been maintaining 42 monitoring stations in Nepal and 18 in India to monitor flooding situations in rivers common to the two countries. In addition, 35 stations are maintained by the Bhutanese government, which shares all such information with New Delhi.
In 2002, New Delhi and Beijing also signed an agreement for information-sharing related to water levels on the Tsangpo Siang/Brahmaputra at three sites; during the monsoon, Indian officials receive this information twice a day. In 2005, another agreement was signed with China to establish a monitoring station in Tibet on the Sutlej river (Langquin Zangbu), and again to share information with New Delhi twice a day. As envisaged in the Indus Water Treaty in 1960, India and Pakistan have created permanent posts – Commissioners for Indus Waters – in each government, and together they form the Permanent Indus Commission. India shares daily data from 280 hydrological sites in six basins of the Indus system every month with counterparts in Pakistan. For the rivers of the Indus system, India also shares priority telegrams, telephone messages and radio broadcasts with Pakistan based on monitoring. These messages are sent to the Indus Commissioner’s Office in Pakistan and, depending on the nature of the message, appropriate channels are chosen for the communication.
While these constitute relatively good starts, crossborder information needs to be made available on a real-time basis if appropriate flood-preparedness measures are to be initiated by local communities after early warnings. Trans-boundary concerns on disaster-related information-sharing have been discussed at several bilateral and regional meetings. But inter-governmental platforms (such as SAARC and ASEAN) as well as relevant institutions (such as the new SAARC Disaster Management Centre and ICIMOD, the mountain-focused agency) have yet to place adequate priority on these concerns and improve coordination for effective data-sharing. Most of these issues have been treated as concerns to be addressed bilaterally, but the solutions tend to be ones that require a regional focus. The potential of bilateral agreements has yet to reach its full strength, typically due to other contentious undercurrents between the governments.
There is also a pressing need to document successful flood-management practices, and to share this information with flood-prone communities. Eventually, there will also need to be a widespread risk assessment and vulnerability analysis of flood-prone areas, including the preparation of highly detailed base maps. In the case of most river basins, the CWC and the Ministry of Water Resources have carried out studies, but more needs to be done in terms of scenario analysis and modelling. Still, one of the most important mitigation measures remains the simple preventive maintenance of embankments and flood-protection walls. To date, embankment maintenance, desilting, canal repair and constant monitoring of field channels have been neglected by most state governments, often due to resource constraints and the low priority assigned to these tasks under a ‘business as usual’ approach.
Due to improvements in early warning and flood forecasting, district authorities in India can today initiate proactive evacuation action. In areas that face recurrent flooding, zones that can serve as temporary relief camps are identified in advance, and arrangements are being made for safe drinking water, sanitation and health facilities. Local youths are also being trained to carry out search-and-rescue operations, and to evacuate individuals caught in flooding. Training programmes and mock drills have been conducted in flood-prone areas to teach people to make rafts from locally available materials, and to prepare improvised life-saving equipment. Flood-prone communities are also being provided training in preparing emergency relief kits, and storing valuables and important documents in safe locations in their houses.
After the immediate crisis of the flooding has passed, transparency in the distribution of relief assistance to flood-affected people is widely known to improve confidence levels in affected communities. The publication of relief entitlements – on, for instance, gram panchayat notice boards – can help in ensuring that there are no leakages, and also guarantee that eligible individuals are not deprived from the assistance they are owed.
Local youth volunteers must be made aware of the possibility of the spread of water-borne diseases after the onset of floods, as hand pumps and borewells frequently become contaminated by muddy water during and after floods. Similarly, the disposal of animal carcasses and the cremation of the deceased also require special care in such situations. The caregivers in each community must be trained to provide psycho-social support and mental health care, as some of those who have lost their relatives, lands, houses or assets will undoubtedly be traumatised, and might need help to overcome their grief and trauma.
Planning ahead
In the aftermath of the Kosi floods of 2008, the Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka floods of 2009 and the Uttarakhand floods of 2010, the state governments cumulatively estimated the damage caused at some INR 800 billion. If the capacities for disaster preparedness, mitigation and emergency response had been strong enough, most of these losses could have been prevented. For the sake of comparison, note that for the period 2005-10 around INR 213.3 billion had been earmarked for India-wide disaster management. The gap between this and the actual losses clearly highlights the strong justification for investing in strengthening disaster preparedness, mitigation and emergency response. So far, most governments have only reacted to disasters after the fact, typically by providing relief assistance to affected communities. More recently, however, the emphasis has shifted to strengthening pre-disaster preparedness, capacity-building of local communities and introducing disaster-related risk-reduction interventions.
In the tenth Five-Year Plan (2002-07), the National Planning Commission for the first time introduced a separate chapter on disaster management, which focused on looking at disasters from a development perspective. ‘Development programmes that go into promoting development at the local level have been left to the general exercise of planning,’ it read.
Measures need also to be taken to integrate disaster mitigation efforts at the local level with the general exercise of planning, and a more supportive environment created for initiatives towards managing of disasters at all levels: national, state, district and local. The future blue-print for disaster management in India rests on the premise that in today’s society while hazards, both natural or otherwise, are inevitable, the disasters that follow need not be so and the society can be prepared to cope with them effectively whenever they occur … the compounded costs of disasters relating to loss of life, loss of assets, economic activities, and cost of reconstruction of not only assets but of lives can scarcely be borne by any community or nation.
During the early stages of drawing up strategies for inclusive growth for the 11th Five-Year Plan (2008-13), the Planning Commission set up a working group chaired by a Member of the NDMA to work out ways to incorporate disaster management in development planning. Based on subsequent recommendations, the 11th Five-Year Plan extended the spirit of the transition initiated in its predecessor, aiming to give ‘impetus to projects and programmes that develop and nurture the culture of safety and the integration of disaster prevention and mitigation into the development process.’ It also noted that ‘the guidance and direction to achieve this paradigm shift’ would be expected to come specifically from the NDMA.
The Planning Commission further explained that ‘mainstreaming’ disaster management into development planning means looking at every part of that process ‘not only from the perspective of reducing the disaster vulnerability of that activity, but also from the perspective of minimising that activity’s potential contribution to the hazard.’ Examples of such an approach include zoning and urban planning, upgrading and enforcing building codes, adopting disaster-resilient building designs, expanding insurance and early warning systems, and creating additional technical competence among a range of engineers, etc.
In consultation with the Planning Commission, the NDMA and concerned ministries have worked out ways to scrutinise the incorporation of disaster management concerns in development plans throughout the central and state governments. For instance, if hospitals or school buildings have to be constructed in areas of high seismic risk, their design must incorporate earthquake-resistant construction techniques. Similarly, if roads are to be built in areas that are prone to flooding or storm surges, the specifications require that these are built in such a way that they cannot be washed away during the monsoon season or when the rains arrive. These now have to be complied with while submitting any plan proposal before the Planning Commission. In so doing, the Indian government has become one of the first in Southasia (and one of the leading examples around the world) to operationalise the mainstreaming of disaster management in development plans. The 12th Five-Year Plan is likewise expected to build on this success by institutionalising the processes within the development-planning framework in the central and state governments.
New roles
As local communities are always the first to respond to a disaster situation, the Indian government is encouraging the involvement of all stakeholders in strengthening community-based disaster management through comprehensive training programmes, public-awareness campaigns, mock drills and so on. This is one of the pillars of the National Policy for Disaster Management, as officially approved in October 2009. While formulating individual State Disaster Management Policies, many state governments have also started to apply these principles for emphasising communities in disaster preparedness, disaster-related risk reduction, mitigation and emergency response, rehabilitation and recovery.
Over the past few years, disaster situations in India have also witnessed changing roles of women, from passive victims to agents of social change. During the immediate aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, women in many villages mobilised their own savings to provide necessary support to affected communities, and even financed some risk-reduction initiatives for their villages. This transformed the quality of life of the disaster-prone communities through large scale social-mobilisation efforts. Examples can be seen in improved levels of confidence and community resilience among women’s groups in many disaster-prone communities, and the success stories of replication of Community Disaster Resilience Funds in thousands of villages due to women-led initiatives in several states.
Special efforts are also being made to create a culture of disaster preparedness, mitigation, risk reduction and emergency response among children and youths, including through changes to curricula. The Committee on Boards of Secondary Education, the All India Council on Technical Education, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, the University Grants Commission, the Indian Medical Council and others have reviewed the curricula of relevant educational programmes by setting up expert working groups, and carried out necessary revisions in the curricula of schools, higher education and professional education. Special efforts are also being made to involve youths in NCC, NSS and Nehru Yuvak Kendra (a voluntary youth organisation supported by the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs, with state, district and sub-district presence) in improving disaster preparedness in their neighbourhoods.
An empowered community – one that is aware about the disaster-related vulnerability of their local area and capable enough to address the challenges of establishing temporary relief camps, providing safe drinking water, sanitation and health services, and managing a system of transparent assessment of damages and distribution of relief assistance – is clearly one of the most important parts of any effective disaster-management system. Public awareness campaigns and capacity-building initiatives are being launched with the help of elected representatives, NGOs, self-help groups and related small-scale organisations. Due to the myriad experiences that have evolved through the years, successful coping strategies of communities which have been living with floods historically will have to be documented and widely shared.
Fragile governance systems will always pose serious challenges in improved flood preparedness, mitigation and emergency response. In the context of disaster management, good governance (especially transparency, accountability, inclusion, non-discrimination, etc) cannot be left as a responsibility of the government alone. Rather, besides the community, corporate sector, civil society and multi-disciplinary professionals all have to contribute to identify possible emerging risks and vulnerabilities, developing worst-case scenarios and preparing to face them in advance by developing local capacities through training, mock drills, awareness campaigns, participatory risk assessment and vulnerability analysis exercises, and capturing the wisdom of elderly people in understanding coping strategies. Natural disasters are often caused by human interference with nature, and also by lack of effective coordination among multiple entities with overlapping mandates. Recent experiences thus underline a need to carry out frank diagnostics of the failure of governance systems in disaster-prone areas.
The impact of the various planning interventions mentioned above is already being seen, in reducing the loss of lives due to flooding in several parts of India. Even though the lives of about 200 million people are affected by floods during the worst such years in India, the number of lives lost due to flooding has been declining. The real challenge continues to be to reduce the economic damage caused by the floods, especially by reducing the number of houses, the hundreds of kilometres of roads and the community assets and rural infrastructure destroyed and damaged by flooding every year. Even though efforts have begun in mainstreaming disaster management in development planning at the national level, the institutionalisation of these efforts at the state, district and sub-district levels continue to remain serious challenges. The involvement of all stakeholder groups is required to meet these challenges in making disaster-prone communities take greater responsibility for disaster risk reduction in their local neighbourhoods.
-- N Vinod Chandra Menon is a former member of the Indian government’s National Disaster.
By N Vinod Chandra Menon
Indian officialdom is pioneering efforts to incorporate disaster management in development planning.
Art: Sworup Nhaisiju
Flood-preparedness measures are divided into structural and non-structural varieties. The former include embankments and related flood-protection walls, while the latter include measures such as zoning within floodplains, building shelters, raising the platforms of borewells and hand pumps above flood level, public-awareness campaigns and capacity-building for a range of preparedness. Forecasting and early-warning systems constitute another significant non-structural measure when dealing with flood-prone areas. In India, the Central Water Commission (CWC) has established a country-wide forecasting system, with alert information shared with all concerned state governments. During the monsoon season, data from 945 stations in the country’s 62 river sub-basins is collected, analysed and applied on a daily basis.
Let us start with a bit of historical context. During the British period, the agency mandated with disaster management in India was the Ministry of Agriculture, as the most frequent disasters in the Subcontinent were recurrent floods and famines. After Independence, the Ministry of Agriculture continued to play this role until as late as 1999, when an official review suggested formulating disaster-management plans at the national, state and district levels. One of the most significant recommendations included in the subsequent report of 2001 was to vest the Ministry of Home Affairs with responsibility for disaster management. Another important recommendation was to establish institutional mechanisms for disaster management, including an apex body at the national level and similar institutions at the state and district levels.
The Indian Ocean tsunami, in December 2004, was a major turning point in understanding the need for comprehensive disaster-management approaches. A year later, the government enacted the Disaster Management Act, following which the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA, of which this writer is a former member) was established and took on the apex role. The NDMA’s executive committee is headed by the home secretary, and its membership includes the secretaries of 14 key ministries; this body performs the tasks related to the implementation of the policy, plans and guidelines. The Disaster Management Act of 2005 also mandated the establishment of State Disaster Management Authorities (SDMAs), headed by the chief ministers of the states of India, as well as District Disaster Management Authorities (DDMAs), headed by district collectors and co-chaired by the elected representative of the respective zilla parishads.
Serious challenges still remain in disseminating alert and early-warning information to flood-prone communities themselves. With the spread of new telecommunication technologies, multiple communication channels are today being used to try to get this critical information ‘the last mile’. The CWC currently operates a network of 878 hydro-meteorological observation sites and disseminates flood forecasts, alert and early-warning messages through a countrywide network of over 500 wireless stations to district authorities; this is now buttressing telephone, telex, fax, satellite and VoIP (Internet telephone) facilities for communicating early-warning messages to various authorities. This has helped to reduce the loss of lives and disruption to livelihoods to a large extent.
From the district headquarters to taluka and tehsil levels, phone, fax and wireless communication is often used. From the tehsil headquarters to villages and smaller settlements, wireless, phone and mobile phones are used. At the very lowest level, even loudspeakers are used to spread evacuation messages. These multiple channels of communication have been used by various agencies to transmit alert and early-warning messages over the past several years. In the recent past, however, innovative approaches have also been attempted by civil-society organisations in several disaster-prone areas to disseminate these messages to the community level, deploying combinations of communication media, including wireless communication supplemented by public-address systems.
The CWC has also deployed automatic water-level-monitoring sensors and tidal gauges with satellite-based transmitters. These can transmit information on rising water levels to designated control rooms, which in turn communicate with district authorities who are tasked with alerting flood-prone communities. During monsoon season, these messages are sent two or three times a day – and during peak flood situations, even hourly. Agencies such as the Indian Meteorological Department, Ministry of Water Resources and Ministry of Earth Sciences also use remote sensing information to identify areas that are likely to be inundated, backed by scenario analysis and simulation models. The CWC uses 175 stations for flood forecasting, of which 147 are for river stage forecast and 28 stations are for flow forecast. These stations are spread over nine major river basins in the country. The 147 ‘river stage’ forecast stations use sensors to monitor the water levels in the rivers that flood regularly, and transmit messages to designated control rooms for onward transmission to government officials. The 28 ‘flow forecast’ stations are located at critical locations for monitoring the inflow into the rivers, especially from reservoirs that release water when their water level rises.
Heads together
Given the nature of Southasian rivers, floods in India are frequently the result of waters coming from across the borders in Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet/China and Bangladesh. An Indo-Bangladesh Joint River Commission, headed by the water ministers of both countries, has been functioning since 1972, tasked with monitoring all concerns related to common rivers. Since 1989, Kathmandu and New Delhi have been maintaining 42 monitoring stations in Nepal and 18 in India to monitor flooding situations in rivers common to the two countries. In addition, 35 stations are maintained by the Bhutanese government, which shares all such information with New Delhi.
In 2002, New Delhi and Beijing also signed an agreement for information-sharing related to water levels on the Tsangpo Siang/Brahmaputra at three sites; during the monsoon, Indian officials receive this information twice a day. In 2005, another agreement was signed with China to establish a monitoring station in Tibet on the Sutlej river (Langquin Zangbu), and again to share information with New Delhi twice a day. As envisaged in the Indus Water Treaty in 1960, India and Pakistan have created permanent posts – Commissioners for Indus Waters – in each government, and together they form the Permanent Indus Commission. India shares daily data from 280 hydrological sites in six basins of the Indus system every month with counterparts in Pakistan. For the rivers of the Indus system, India also shares priority telegrams, telephone messages and radio broadcasts with Pakistan based on monitoring. These messages are sent to the Indus Commissioner’s Office in Pakistan and, depending on the nature of the message, appropriate channels are chosen for the communication.
While these constitute relatively good starts, crossborder information needs to be made available on a real-time basis if appropriate flood-preparedness measures are to be initiated by local communities after early warnings. Trans-boundary concerns on disaster-related information-sharing have been discussed at several bilateral and regional meetings. But inter-governmental platforms (such as SAARC and ASEAN) as well as relevant institutions (such as the new SAARC Disaster Management Centre and ICIMOD, the mountain-focused agency) have yet to place adequate priority on these concerns and improve coordination for effective data-sharing. Most of these issues have been treated as concerns to be addressed bilaterally, but the solutions tend to be ones that require a regional focus. The potential of bilateral agreements has yet to reach its full strength, typically due to other contentious undercurrents between the governments.
There is also a pressing need to document successful flood-management practices, and to share this information with flood-prone communities. Eventually, there will also need to be a widespread risk assessment and vulnerability analysis of flood-prone areas, including the preparation of highly detailed base maps. In the case of most river basins, the CWC and the Ministry of Water Resources have carried out studies, but more needs to be done in terms of scenario analysis and modelling. Still, one of the most important mitigation measures remains the simple preventive maintenance of embankments and flood-protection walls. To date, embankment maintenance, desilting, canal repair and constant monitoring of field channels have been neglected by most state governments, often due to resource constraints and the low priority assigned to these tasks under a ‘business as usual’ approach.
Due to improvements in early warning and flood forecasting, district authorities in India can today initiate proactive evacuation action. In areas that face recurrent flooding, zones that can serve as temporary relief camps are identified in advance, and arrangements are being made for safe drinking water, sanitation and health facilities. Local youths are also being trained to carry out search-and-rescue operations, and to evacuate individuals caught in flooding. Training programmes and mock drills have been conducted in flood-prone areas to teach people to make rafts from locally available materials, and to prepare improvised life-saving equipment. Flood-prone communities are also being provided training in preparing emergency relief kits, and storing valuables and important documents in safe locations in their houses.
After the immediate crisis of the flooding has passed, transparency in the distribution of relief assistance to flood-affected people is widely known to improve confidence levels in affected communities. The publication of relief entitlements – on, for instance, gram panchayat notice boards – can help in ensuring that there are no leakages, and also guarantee that eligible individuals are not deprived from the assistance they are owed.
Local youth volunteers must be made aware of the possibility of the spread of water-borne diseases after the onset of floods, as hand pumps and borewells frequently become contaminated by muddy water during and after floods. Similarly, the disposal of animal carcasses and the cremation of the deceased also require special care in such situations. The caregivers in each community must be trained to provide psycho-social support and mental health care, as some of those who have lost their relatives, lands, houses or assets will undoubtedly be traumatised, and might need help to overcome their grief and trauma.
Planning ahead
In the aftermath of the Kosi floods of 2008, the Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka floods of 2009 and the Uttarakhand floods of 2010, the state governments cumulatively estimated the damage caused at some INR 800 billion. If the capacities for disaster preparedness, mitigation and emergency response had been strong enough, most of these losses could have been prevented. For the sake of comparison, note that for the period 2005-10 around INR 213.3 billion had been earmarked for India-wide disaster management. The gap between this and the actual losses clearly highlights the strong justification for investing in strengthening disaster preparedness, mitigation and emergency response. So far, most governments have only reacted to disasters after the fact, typically by providing relief assistance to affected communities. More recently, however, the emphasis has shifted to strengthening pre-disaster preparedness, capacity-building of local communities and introducing disaster-related risk-reduction interventions.
In the tenth Five-Year Plan (2002-07), the National Planning Commission for the first time introduced a separate chapter on disaster management, which focused on looking at disasters from a development perspective. ‘Development programmes that go into promoting development at the local level have been left to the general exercise of planning,’ it read.
Measures need also to be taken to integrate disaster mitigation efforts at the local level with the general exercise of planning, and a more supportive environment created for initiatives towards managing of disasters at all levels: national, state, district and local. The future blue-print for disaster management in India rests on the premise that in today’s society while hazards, both natural or otherwise, are inevitable, the disasters that follow need not be so and the society can be prepared to cope with them effectively whenever they occur … the compounded costs of disasters relating to loss of life, loss of assets, economic activities, and cost of reconstruction of not only assets but of lives can scarcely be borne by any community or nation.
During the early stages of drawing up strategies for inclusive growth for the 11th Five-Year Plan (2008-13), the Planning Commission set up a working group chaired by a Member of the NDMA to work out ways to incorporate disaster management in development planning. Based on subsequent recommendations, the 11th Five-Year Plan extended the spirit of the transition initiated in its predecessor, aiming to give ‘impetus to projects and programmes that develop and nurture the culture of safety and the integration of disaster prevention and mitigation into the development process.’ It also noted that ‘the guidance and direction to achieve this paradigm shift’ would be expected to come specifically from the NDMA.
The Planning Commission further explained that ‘mainstreaming’ disaster management into development planning means looking at every part of that process ‘not only from the perspective of reducing the disaster vulnerability of that activity, but also from the perspective of minimising that activity’s potential contribution to the hazard.’ Examples of such an approach include zoning and urban planning, upgrading and enforcing building codes, adopting disaster-resilient building designs, expanding insurance and early warning systems, and creating additional technical competence among a range of engineers, etc.
In consultation with the Planning Commission, the NDMA and concerned ministries have worked out ways to scrutinise the incorporation of disaster management concerns in development plans throughout the central and state governments. For instance, if hospitals or school buildings have to be constructed in areas of high seismic risk, their design must incorporate earthquake-resistant construction techniques. Similarly, if roads are to be built in areas that are prone to flooding or storm surges, the specifications require that these are built in such a way that they cannot be washed away during the monsoon season or when the rains arrive. These now have to be complied with while submitting any plan proposal before the Planning Commission. In so doing, the Indian government has become one of the first in Southasia (and one of the leading examples around the world) to operationalise the mainstreaming of disaster management in development plans. The 12th Five-Year Plan is likewise expected to build on this success by institutionalising the processes within the development-planning framework in the central and state governments.
New roles
As local communities are always the first to respond to a disaster situation, the Indian government is encouraging the involvement of all stakeholders in strengthening community-based disaster management through comprehensive training programmes, public-awareness campaigns, mock drills and so on. This is one of the pillars of the National Policy for Disaster Management, as officially approved in October 2009. While formulating individual State Disaster Management Policies, many state governments have also started to apply these principles for emphasising communities in disaster preparedness, disaster-related risk reduction, mitigation and emergency response, rehabilitation and recovery.
Over the past few years, disaster situations in India have also witnessed changing roles of women, from passive victims to agents of social change. During the immediate aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, women in many villages mobilised their own savings to provide necessary support to affected communities, and even financed some risk-reduction initiatives for their villages. This transformed the quality of life of the disaster-prone communities through large scale social-mobilisation efforts. Examples can be seen in improved levels of confidence and community resilience among women’s groups in many disaster-prone communities, and the success stories of replication of Community Disaster Resilience Funds in thousands of villages due to women-led initiatives in several states.
Special efforts are also being made to create a culture of disaster preparedness, mitigation, risk reduction and emergency response among children and youths, including through changes to curricula. The Committee on Boards of Secondary Education, the All India Council on Technical Education, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, the University Grants Commission, the Indian Medical Council and others have reviewed the curricula of relevant educational programmes by setting up expert working groups, and carried out necessary revisions in the curricula of schools, higher education and professional education. Special efforts are also being made to involve youths in NCC, NSS and Nehru Yuvak Kendra (a voluntary youth organisation supported by the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs, with state, district and sub-district presence) in improving disaster preparedness in their neighbourhoods.
An empowered community – one that is aware about the disaster-related vulnerability of their local area and capable enough to address the challenges of establishing temporary relief camps, providing safe drinking water, sanitation and health services, and managing a system of transparent assessment of damages and distribution of relief assistance – is clearly one of the most important parts of any effective disaster-management system. Public awareness campaigns and capacity-building initiatives are being launched with the help of elected representatives, NGOs, self-help groups and related small-scale organisations. Due to the myriad experiences that have evolved through the years, successful coping strategies of communities which have been living with floods historically will have to be documented and widely shared.
Fragile governance systems will always pose serious challenges in improved flood preparedness, mitigation and emergency response. In the context of disaster management, good governance (especially transparency, accountability, inclusion, non-discrimination, etc) cannot be left as a responsibility of the government alone. Rather, besides the community, corporate sector, civil society and multi-disciplinary professionals all have to contribute to identify possible emerging risks and vulnerabilities, developing worst-case scenarios and preparing to face them in advance by developing local capacities through training, mock drills, awareness campaigns, participatory risk assessment and vulnerability analysis exercises, and capturing the wisdom of elderly people in understanding coping strategies. Natural disasters are often caused by human interference with nature, and also by lack of effective coordination among multiple entities with overlapping mandates. Recent experiences thus underline a need to carry out frank diagnostics of the failure of governance systems in disaster-prone areas.
The impact of the various planning interventions mentioned above is already being seen, in reducing the loss of lives due to flooding in several parts of India. Even though the lives of about 200 million people are affected by floods during the worst such years in India, the number of lives lost due to flooding has been declining. The real challenge continues to be to reduce the economic damage caused by the floods, especially by reducing the number of houses, the hundreds of kilometres of roads and the community assets and rural infrastructure destroyed and damaged by flooding every year. Even though efforts have begun in mainstreaming disaster management in development planning at the national level, the institutionalisation of these efforts at the state, district and sub-district levels continue to remain serious challenges. The involvement of all stakeholder groups is required to meet these challenges in making disaster-prone communities take greater responsibility for disaster risk reduction in their local neighbourhoods.
-- N Vinod Chandra Menon is a former member of the Indian government’s National Disaster.
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