World 'dangerously unprepared' for future disasters
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Some countries' failure to pay into a UN disaster relief fund is leaving the world "dangerously unprepared" for future crises, Andrew Mitchell says.
The international development secretary said several countries had not donated to the Central Emergency Response Fund, aimed at speeding-up relief delivery.
Britain has increased its pledge for 2012 from £40m to £60m but the fund is expected to be £45m short next year.
The international community must "wake up" to the challenge, Mr Mitchell said.
The Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) was set up in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami on 26 December 2004. It includes a grant element based on voluntary contributions from governments and private sector organisations and individuals.
The fund was designed by the United Nations to speed up relief in crisis zones with one central fund, though many countries still choose to give bilaterally.
ActionAid spokeswoman Jane Moyo told BBC Breakfast: "The importance of this fund is that it pre-positions money where it is most needed and it is important that people - other governments - pull their weight because then we can help people who are most in need, in their time of most need."
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“
Start Quote
Spend to save is a good rule in international development”
Alan Duncan
International Development Minister
'Basic humanitarian decency'
The fund has been hit hard by a series of natural disasters this year - the tsunami in Japan; an earthquake in New Zealand; famine in the Horn of Africa; and floods in Pakistan and the Philippines.
Mr Mitchell said the increasing numbers of people living in low-lying or famine-prone areas meant the scale of future tragedies would be greater.
He said many countries wait for events to happen before offering money but he said this could affect critical emergency response work.
He said in the first few hours of a disaster, when survivors are trapped in the rubble of an earthquake, delays and lack of resources could mean the difference between life and death.
"This year the world has been rocked by devastating disasters and the evidence suggests this trend is likely to continue.
"The past shows that international responses could have been more effective if they had been properly planned and coordinated as part of one single system instead of a patch-quilt approach we see all too often."
Mr Mitchell said: "The system is in place but too many countries and agencies are failing to back it, leaving the world dangerously unprepared for the scale and number of shocks that lie ahead.
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Selected CERF donors in 2011
UK - $94m (£60m)
Sweden - $74m
Norway - $68m
Netherlands - $54m
Canada - $41m
Spain - $20m
Germany - $16m
Australia - $14m
US - $6m
Japan - $3m
France - $720,000
China - $500,000
Source: UN CERF website
"The international community must wake up to this challenge and unite its efforts under one umbrella," he added.
International Development Minister Alan Duncan told Breakfast that while many countries were facing financial difficulties, it made sense to donate emergency aid in advance and was "basic humanitarian decency".
"If you actually put money into a fund in advance of what are going to be more predictable emergencies around the world such as floods and earthquakes you can actually save a lot of lives by being able to respond very quickly as a result."
Mr Duncan said being prepared could also save a lot of of money "so spend to save is a good rule in international development".
Mr Duncan refused to name to the countries the government believed were not pulling their weight. But he said there were "one or two European ones" and countries from both east and west.
CERF's stated objectives are to:
promote early action and response to reduce loss of life;
enhance response to time-critical requirements;
strengthen core elements of humanitarian response in underfunded crises
Showing posts with label disaster management india. Show all posts
Showing posts with label disaster management india. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Simple tools speed up quake warnings - December 12, 2011
The strategy involves tying together real-time data coming from seismic instruments, which detect shaking, as well as Global Positioning System (GPS) instruments, which detect the absolute movements of the ground. Both devices are already installed in places such as Japan and California — the key is to ensure that they are delivering the right sort of data simultaneously, says Bock, who reported on his progress at theAmerican Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in San Francisco, California, on 8 December. Bock and his colleagues this month received funding to build and test a prototype upgrade device, and hope to have an initial system in place in California within six months.
Seismic instruments are very sensitive, but have a hard time discriminating between large quakes of magnitude 7 or higher in the first seconds or minutes of an earthquake, because the shaking simply goes off the scale. In the case of the March 2011 Tohoku earthquake in Japan, for example, the Japan Meteorological Agency estimated the quake's magnitude as just 6.8 after 38 seconds, and 8 after a few minutes, says Bock. It was not until weaker seismic readings from much further away were added to the analysis that they could say, 20 minutes after the quake began, that it was a devastating magnitude 9 — 30 times stronger than a magnitude-8 quake.
Accelerometers add another layer of information, but their data take too long to process to be of use. GPS instruments are more useful. The station closest to the epicentre, for example, showed a 1.5-metre drop of the ground in the first 100 seconds of the quake. "That's huge," says Bock. This provides a quick and obvious indication of large vertical ground displacement — the thing that causes tsunamis — and can be combined with seismic data to quickly assess quake size. But most GPS networks were designed to provide long-term data about ground movement, not short-term information during earthquakes; they may be designed to take readings once every 30 minutes and deliver data once a day, for example. And they aren't necessarily installed next to seismometers. Of Japan's 1,200 GPS stations — all of which are real time — only 180 are close enough to seismic stations to be of use in this sort of system, and so far they haven't been utilized this way.
"Japan's earthquake system is one of the best in the world. But their GPS system, which is also the best in the world, is ignored," says Bock. This is partly because flowing the data together and interpreting them is tricky, and partly because the seismic community hasn't communicated much with the 'geodesy' community that works with GPS signals, says Bock. "There's a separation between communities that we need to fix," he says.
Read in detail at :- www.cdrn.org.in
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Political Will – and Money – Needed for Disaster Management
Political Will – and Money – Needed for Disaster Management
By Joshua Kyalimpa
DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 30, 2011 (IPS) - Managing the impact of increased disasters due to climate change will only be possible if such efforts are led by local communities, say non-governmental organisations working in climate change.
"We cannot use the excuse of money - or the lack of it - not to do anything. Yes, developed countries have to make financial commitments, but what if they don’t?" asks Charles Hopkins of the charity CARE International in Ethiopia, an international humanitarian organisation.
A deal on climate change at Durban might still be a far-fetched dream, but climate change-related disasters are already taking a toll around the globe.
According to a report by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), increases in some extreme weather and climate events have already been observed and further increases are projected over the 21st century.
The Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation, evaluates the role of climate change in altering characteristics of extreme events. It assesses experience with a wide range of options used by institutions, organizations, and communities to reduce exposure and vulnerability, and improve resilience, to climate extremes.
Speaking at a press conference at United Nations 17th Conference of the Parties in Durban, South Africa, IPCC executive director Dr. Kristie Ebi highlighted that while total economic losses from natural disasters could be high in developed countries; economic losses expressed as a proportion of GDP could be higher in developing countries.
Ebi says the IPCC will soon start meeting policy makers and politicians around the world to urge them take up measures for disaster reduction: "We are committed to outreach events over the coming months with a hope that politicians and policy makers will be encouraged to advance climate change adaptation."
According to the IPCC report, deaths from natural disasters occur much more in developing countries. Information obtained from 1970 to 2008 by the experts’ shows that more than 95 percent of deaths from natural disasters were in developing countries.
Most governments have, however, not put in place policies for disaster risk reduction. Hopkins says governments, especially those in Africa, have to take to protect people and their property.
"People have to be given the right information because information on disaster reduction remains at the top and often the affected people don’t even get it," says Hopkins
Professor Richard Klein, of the Stockholm Environment Institute and a member of the international panel of experts, says people actually don’t have to rely on international agreements.
Read this article in detail at :- http://www.cdrn.org.in/show.detail.asp?id=22918
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Corrigendum notice for procurement of 02 Nos Thermal Imaging Camera for NDRF.
Let's make climate change talks inclusive
Let's make climate change talks inclusive
The HinduClimate-resilient sustainable agriculture requires knowledge. Successful projects such as these can provide a model for others to follow. Knowledge transfer that brings the benefits of research from the laboratory to the farm is essential.
Price volatility and the persistence of widespread and hidden hunger underline the need for enhancing the productivity and profitability of smallholder agriculture in an environmentally sustainable manner.
When world leaders sit down again to discuss climate change, we hope that the people who live and work on the world's 500 million small farms will be with them, at least in spirit. Their voice — and the issue of agriculture as a whole — has, for too long, been missing from the conversation. But without increased support to smallholder farmers now, the number of hungry people will grow, and future food security will be placed in jeopardy.
The upcoming 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012 — marking the twentieth anniversary of the landmark Earth Summit that produced Agenda 21, “a roadmap” for sustainable development — will both need to ensure that agriculture and the world's smallholder farmers are high on the agenda if we are to overcome the many challenges we face in achieving the Millennium Development Goal 1.
The front line
In the last 20 years the global population has risen from about 5.3 billion to seven billion; the reality of climate change has been accepted beyond doubt; and the number of hungry people in the world has remained stubbornly around the one billion mark. Meanwhile, aid to agriculture has only just recently begun to pick up after decades of stagnation. More needs to be done — a lot more — and supporting smallholder farmers must be at the heart of any agenda.
The rural poor across the world, including India, have contributed little to human-induced climate change, yet they are on the front line in coping with its effects. Farmers can no longer rely on historical averages for rainfall and temperature, and the more frequent and extreme weather events, such as droughts and floods, can spell disaster. And there are new threats, such as sea level rise and the impact of melting glaciers on water supply.
How significant are small farms? As many as two billion people worldwide depend on them for their food and livelihood. Smallholder farmers in India produce 41 per cent of the country's food grains, and other food items that contribute to local and national food security. Small farmers cannot be ignored, and special attention must be given to the most vulnerable groups — particularly women, who make up a large percentage of farmers in the developing world.
Small farms also add up to big business: In the world's 50 least developed countries, agriculture is the backbone of the economy, accounting for 30 to 60 per cent of Gross Domestic Product and employing as much as 70 per cent or more of the workforce. Addressing the plight of smallholders isn't just a matter of equity, it's a necessity if we are going to be able to feed ourselves in the future. Smallholders farm 80 per cent of the total farmland in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia. If we don't help them to adapt to climate change, their achievements — feeding a large portion of humanity — will be endangered.
With appropriate support, smallholders can play a key role in protecting our environment, for example through actions that contribute to carbon sequestration and limit carbon emissions (planting and maintaining forests, engaging in agro-forestry activities, managing rangelands and rice lands, and watershed protection that limits deforestation and soil erosion).
To continue farming in a sustainable way in the face of climate change, rural women and men need to be given the resources to cope with the challenges. Smallholder farmers need support such as resilience-building technologies (including drought- and salt-tolerant seed varieties and new methods of rainwater harvesting), and training in sustainable practices of conservation agriculture, such as minimum-till farming to reduce erosion and moisture loss. Investing in adaptation measures now will be far less costly than in the future.
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the M.S. Swaminathan Foundation, together with the government of India and other partners, have undertaken a range of projects to do just that.
For example, in Tamil Nadu, we have been supporting rural communities to produce and market nutri-cereals like millet, which can easily grow in dry and arid environments. We worked with smallholder farmers to use simple techniques to increase their yields, while also helping rural women create and market modern recipes — for example, a millet malt drink now being sold in major health food stores in India. The result has been not only increased food for the community, but also increased income and non-farm employment opportunities.
To help farmers adapt to increasingly dry conditions, a programme in Chhattisgarh has expanded cultivation of traditionally produced Niger seed oil, which grows well in areas that receive little rain. Land and forest regeneration were promoted to improve soil structure and moisture levels, and solar energy technology and biogas digesters have been introduced, which reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as the need for fuelwood. Another project in the northeast has helped restore degraded jhumland and has benefited almost 40,000 households in 860 villages.
Climate-resilient sustainable agriculture requires knowledge. Successful projects such as these can provide a model for others to follow. Knowledge transfer that brings the benefits of research from the laboratory to the farm is essential.
Programmes targeted at vulnerable groups such as women and tribal communities are particularly important. IFAD-supported programmes and projects in India promote tribal development by building and strengthening grassroots institutions that enable vulnerable people to plan and manage their own development, negotiate improved entitlements, and broaden their livelihood opportunities. Conferences and talks among world leaders can do many things but they don't feed people. We hope that leaders will keep in mind those who do: the smallholder farmers. Price volatility and the persistence of widespread, endemic and hidden hunger underline the need for urgent attention to enhancing the productivity and profitability of smallholder agriculture in an environmentally sustainable manner. This is the pathway to increasing agriculture's contribution to climate change mitigation as well as to sustainable food security.
(Prof. M.S. Swaminathan is Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, and Chairman, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation. Kanayo F. Nwanze is President, International Fund for Agricultural Development, a U.N. agency and international financial institution dedicated to helping poor, rural people overcome poverty.)
Source:- http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article2624715.ece?homepage=true
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Tender Notice for Establishment of SMS Burst Service for NDMA.
National Disaster Management Authority 
Govt. of India
| Tenders |
For Details Click the Tender Link
Detailed information please log on to :- http://cdrn.org.in/show.detail.asp?id=22760 |
National Disaster Management Authority
Govt. of India
| Tenders |
For Details Click the Tender Link
Detailed information please log on to :- http://cdrn.org.in/show.detail.asp?id=22760 |
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Children Make-up a Quarter of Southeast Asian Flood Victims
Children Make-up a Quarter of Southeast Asian Flood Victims
27/10/2011 – Flooding has affected eight million people and killed 800 in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and the Philippines. A quarter of these deaths have been children. |
As flooding inundates parts of Thailand, it hasn’t taken long for children to be swept up and carried away by the surging waters. Current floods in Thailand are the worst in decades and three-quarters of children in Asia have never learned how to swim – a killer combination.
To date, children account for about a quarter of the 800 flood-related casualties reported since July in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and the Philippines, says the United Nations (UN). It is easy for children to wander out of their parents’ sight and fall into the canals and streams in their neighbourhoods or slip into the floodwaters surrounding their houses, especially after dark.
"It doesn't take very long for a child to slip away from an already harried mother or older sibling who are trying to schlep all the belongings. It takes only two or three minutes for a child to drown,” said Michael Linnan of the US-based Alliance for Safe Children in Bangkok to TIME magazine.
In all, the flooding has affected eight million people in Southeast Asia. More than 50 Thai children and 80 Cambodian children have died. In the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, the overwhelming majority of fatalities reported since August (49 out of 57) have been children. Flooding in Myanmar has also been severe, but no official estimates on child casualties have been published. Still, the scale of the floods indicates shortcomings in disaster risk and reduction planning, says the UN.
More than 370 people have been killed in Thailand alone; but worst of the flooding is expected to hit the Bangkok region tonight. Authorities have warned all 50 districts to be on the alert and the government has begun evacuating people in at-risk regions. Vulnerable groups include people living in some areas of Bangkok and nearby provinces, particularly those living in one-story houses close to rivers and the canals. A five-day holiday (ending October 31st) has been designated for the northern and central provinces, giving them adequate time to prepare for the floods.
“Too much preparation is indeed better than too little,” said Natapanu Nopakun, spokesperson for the government’s Flood Relief Operations Command.
Earlier this week, the head of the UN’s Bangkok office for Disaster Risk Reduction,
Jerry Velasquez, expressed his concern about “the high numbers of children dying in these floods, which was a concern raised by children themselves when over 600 were interviewed for the new Children’s Charter on Disaster Risk Reduction.” The charter was the focus of this month’s International Disaster Reduction Day.
Every year, 240,000 children aged 17 and under drown because most have never learned to swim – roughly the same number that died in the 2004 Asian Tsunami. These deaths receive much less media attention, given that they build up slowly, on a day-to-day basis without the same shock value as a major humanitarian disaster.
The actual number of drowning deaths may be higher than official figures. About 15-25 per cent of such deaths go unreported, given that death certificates aren’t mandatory.
Half of child drowning deaths occur among children under the age of five who are too young to learn to swim. But, community education and social services have proved useful. For example, research has found that village day care centres can help reduce drowning deaths by 80 per cent.
Read the complete document at :- http://cdrn.org.in/show.detail.asp?id=22725
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Pledge to safety promising to act wisely in the event of a disaster
Pledge to safety
We promise: To be careful and act wisely. Photo: Meedhu Miriyam Joseph
The students of Government Higher Secondary School for Girls, Thiruvananthapuram, learnt a few tips on how to cope in the event of a natural disaster.
As they took the pledge together, promising to act wisely and carefully in the event of a disaster and abide by the instructions given to them by the concerned authorities, the kids seemed to send a message to everyone to be prepared because a disaster can strike us unexpectedly.
The students of Government Higher Secondary School for Girls, Cotton Hill, Thiruvananthapuram, took the pledge in connection with the International Day for Disaster Reduction observed on October 13.
They also participated in the earthquake mock drill session, which would help them understand the basic safety measures to be taken in the event of a natural disaster.
This year, the State-level observance of the day took place within the framework of the campaign — “Step up for Disaster Risk Reduction” with the theme, “Making Children and Young People Partners for Disaster Risk Reduction”.
Mock drills
Ashna Shajim, a Std VI student, was one among those who attended the earthquake mock drill session at the school. She reluctantly bends her knees, places her hands on head protectively and explains, “If an earthquake hits this school I would drop, hold and cover my head like this so that I can protect my brain”.
She sure seems to know the basic safety measures to be taken in the event of an earthquake.
Monday, October 24, 2011
‘Drop, cover and hold on in case you feel a tremor’
The Aga Khan University (AKU) on Thursday conducted an earthquake drill as part of disaster preparedness at all its centres in the country, during which hundreds of AKU faculty, staff, students and volunteers followed a quake preparedness protocol – ducking under tables, desks and other sturdy pieces of furniture and holding on for a minute.
‘Drop, Cover and Hold On in case you feel a tremor’ was the message given to participants of an earthquake preparedness drill organised by the Aga Khan University (AKU) at all its locations in Pakistan.
According to experts, more than a third of all earthquakes between 1991 and 2005 around the world occurred in Central and South Asia.
The quakes in Sarez, Tajikistan (1911); Gujarat, India (2001); Naryn, Kyrgyzstan (2002); and Azad Kashmir, Pakistan (2005) are the examples of the seismic hazards that exist in the region and their devastating consequences.
The drill on Thursday was part of the Aga Khan Development Network’s ShakeOut Campaign across Central and South Asia, covering Afghanistan, India, Pakistan and Tajikistan.
On hearing an alarm, hundreds of AKU faculty, staff, students and volunteers followed a quake preparedness protocol – ducking under tables, desks and other sturdy pieces of furniture and holding on for a minute, practicing what to do and where to take shelter in case an earthquake strikes.
“It is crucial to remind ourselves that we live in a seismically-active part of the world, and must regularly practice how to respond during earthquakes. The Drop, Cover and Hold On technique is highly effective in reducing injuries caused by non-structural
hazards,” said Dr Firoz Verjee, coordinator of the AKDN’s Disaster Risk Management Initiative.
“Drills keep people active and build awareness,” says the chair of AKU ShakeOut Campaign Task Force, Nadeem Mustafa Khan “This was indeed a learning experience for all.”
‘Drop, Cover and Hold On in case you feel a tremor’ was the message given to participants of an earthquake preparedness drill organised by the Aga Khan University (AKU) at all its locations in Pakistan.
According to experts, more than a third of all earthquakes between 1991 and 2005 around the world occurred in Central and South Asia.
The quakes in Sarez, Tajikistan (1911); Gujarat, India (2001); Naryn, Kyrgyzstan (2002); and Azad Kashmir, Pakistan (2005) are the examples of the seismic hazards that exist in the region and their devastating consequences.
The drill on Thursday was part of the Aga Khan Development Network’s ShakeOut Campaign across Central and South Asia, covering Afghanistan, India, Pakistan and Tajikistan.
On hearing an alarm, hundreds of AKU faculty, staff, students and volunteers followed a quake preparedness protocol – ducking under tables, desks and other sturdy pieces of furniture and holding on for a minute, practicing what to do and where to take shelter in case an earthquake strikes.
“It is crucial to remind ourselves that we live in a seismically-active part of the world, and must regularly practice how to respond during earthquakes. The Drop, Cover and Hold On technique is highly effective in reducing injuries caused by non-structural
hazards,” said Dr Firoz Verjee, coordinator of the AKDN’s Disaster Risk Management Initiative.
“Drills keep people active and build awareness,” says the chair of AKU ShakeOut Campaign Task Force, Nadeem Mustafa Khan “This was indeed a learning experience for all.”
Read the full document at :- http://cdrn.org.in/show.detail.asp?id=22699
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Indo-French satellite to boost climate insight
Indo-French satellite to boost climate insight
12 October 2011 | EN
The Indo-French Megha-Tropiques satellite will boost tropical climate climate data.
CNES
[CHENNAI] A newly launched Indo-French satellite will help scrutinise weather over the tropics in detail and permit better understanding of the monsoon, cyclones and floods.
The one-tonne ‘Megha-Tropiques’ (Megha means cloud in Sanskrit) was launched along with three other smaller satellites on an Indian rocket ‘Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle’ this week (12 October) from the Indian space port of Sriharikota, an island in the Bay of Bengal, 90 kilometres off Chennai.
The new satellites would help study greenhouse gases, vegetation and land use, and help locate ships at sea.
Megha-Tropiques, perched at an angle of 20 degrees, 867 kilometres above the earth, and orbiting the earth five times daily in a north-south direction, will gather data on clouds including ice formation, water vapour and solar radiation, in a three-year experimental mission.
"It opens up a new era of atmospheric research in the tropical system," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman K. Radhakrishnan said after the nationally televised launch. "This mission will provide a lot of information about the tropical regions and how it contributes to global weather."
The French National Space Centre (CNES) and ISRO jointly developed the instrument for ‘Microwave Analysis and Detection of Rain and Atmospheric Structures’ to study clouds in detail, including ice formation.
CNES separately developed the Sondeur Atmosphérique du Profil d'Humidité Intertropicale par Radiométrie (SAPHIR) payload to study water vapour, and Scanner for Radiation Budget Measurement (SCARAB) to study radiation.
"It is part of a constellation of the Global Precipitation Mission (GPM), an international cooperative mission to track precipitation, such as rainfall and snowfall, around the world," a senior scientist from CNES said after the launch. The GPM is run by the National Aeronautics and Space Agency of the United States and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency.
According to CNES, the data would help scientists understand the processes leading to dramatic weather events affecting the tropical countries, such as hurricanes, systems producing heavy rainfall and processes governing monsoon variability or droughts.
Extreme events such as the El Nino of 1997-98, repeated droughts across parts of Africa, and the Atlantic hurricanes are linked to changing climate trends and point to the importance of studying tropical weather systems in the context of climate change, CNES said.
Roddam Narasimha, chairman from the Indian scientific group for Megha-Tropiques, told the daily, 'The Hindu', that scientists worldwide have not been able to "cash in on the predictability" of tropical weather because global prediction models are not as efficient over the tropics as with higher latitudes.
Source:- http://www.scidev.net/en/south-asia/news/indo-french-satellite-to-boost-climate-insight.html
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
ADB President Visits India to Mark 25 Years of Partnership
MANILA, PHILIPPINES – Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Haruhiko Kuroda will begin an official visit to India from 17 October to mark 25 years of development partnership between India and ADB.
During his three-day visit, Mr. Kuroda will join senior Government leaders at a commemorative ceremony, and participate in discussions on the long-term development challenges and opportunities facing Asian countries at the Eminent Persons’ Forum in New Delhi. Both events are jointly organized by the Government of India and ADB.
“ADB’s operations in India have steadily grown over the last 25 years. President Kuroda’s visit reflects ADB’s strong partnership with India and our continuing commitment to support the Government’s efforts to achieve inclusive and sustainable growth,” said Hun Kim, Country Director of ADB’s India Resident Mission.
While in India, Mr. Kuroda will also visit ADB-funded urban development, road and energy projects in Madhya Pradesh and meet senior officials from the state.
ADB began its operations in India in 1986. The relationship between both partners goes back much further, as India was one of the founding members of ADB in 1966.
Between 1986 and 2010, ADB has supported over 150 projects across eight sectors, with an estimated cost of $24 billion. ADB's projects are spread across over 20 states of the country.
ADB recently approved a new three-year country operations business plan for 2012-2014 that will provide lending assistance of $6.25 billion to support inclusive and sustainable growth in the country.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Living with Disasters: River Bank Erosion, Displacement and Consequenc
| Living with Disasters: River Bank Erosion, Displacement and Consequenc |
| Islamic Relief Worldwide-Bangladesh |
| Description | Posted: Sunday, September 25, 2011 |
MILLIONS of people are now suffering from displacement due to river bank erosion in the northern part of Bangladesh. Sufferings of these people go unnoticed in our development strategies, and even if it is noticed in a limited scale, we fail to have proper policy and intervention that can really help these people. Yes, money is spent, especially by some non-government organisations, but these are quite scattered and incomprehensive and don’t properly address the core problem. Over the course of the 21st century, climate change is expected to increase the risk of more frequent and severe floods through higher river flows resulting from heavier and more erratic rainfall in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna system during the monsoon and increased melting of the Himalayan glaciers. Its physiography and river morphology also contribute to recurring disasters. International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in 2000 identified river erosion as the largest concern for Bangladesh. But very few people are concerned about it. People sustain various kinds of losses due to disasters which affect young children, homes, crops, land, trees, poultry and livestock etc, which makes them more vulnerable after displacement in the northern char areas of Bangladesh. They cannot maintain the status of life, after displacement, as they earlier maintained. They suffer from socio-political exclusion and economic insecurity. They are not even certain about how long it will take to get back to the earlier level of income. Also, they have to wait for a certain period to be involved in the social activities and to be accepted in society.
DISASTERS often cause severe social exclusion especially after displacement of people due to river erosion and sometimes for flood. In the northern part of the country, chars are sustainable for three to four years, which is very problematic for people as after one year, a char becomes liveable and after two and a half to three years it becomes cultivable. Here is an indigenous technique very prevalent in the northern part of the country for deciding when or whether to inhabit a char. They take this decision by observing the straw growing in the char. Observing the straw growing there they can tell if this char will be stable for a few years and if it will be cultivable. The problem arises for them when they start getting crops; they are to leave the char, deprived of a long term output from the land area they prepared. The male working people migrate to the cities, especially to the capital city, for four to five months in a year, leaving their families alone. For this, they need to be ensured that during their absence their wives and children will be taken care of by someone and that they will be in a secure situation. But when people are displaced and live in a new place, they do not have any relative or trustable neighbours who can take care of the family. Again, without migration, they do not have any means to support the family. So, they go for searching for livelihood, leaving their wives and children in anxiety. The treatment people receive in the new area after displacement is quite inhuman. They are addressed as ‘nodi bhanga manush’ (people displaced by river erosion) and they are treated as inferior outsiders. Even in the social rituals, the displaced people, until they pass a certain period of time and get mixed into the community, are not allowed to participate. When there is any occasion or feast in the community, the poor, displaced people, especially children, try to join it to get a chance to get some good dishes, but they are turned away. But in the religious and educational institutions they are not discriminated, except in the sessions in making village policies. In the rural areas of Bangladesh, village policies are formulated in the village level meeting with the participation of all family heads and if anyone violates the rule, the judgment is also given in these meetings. The displaced people are normally not allowed to share their opinions in these meetings until the passage of a certain period when they become the part of the society.
A RECENT study conducted in a char of the northern part of Bangladesh shows that 71 per cent of the people become displaced due to river erosion, 22 per cent of them due to flood. And there is hardly a family which has not ever been displaced. In the survey, 77 per cent of the respondents were found to be displaced for more than three times and while conducting the survey, such a man was found who, in his 52 year life span, was displaced 36 times. This frequent movement of people makes them unwilling to do something that can support their permanent livelihood as earning livelihood depends on one’s stability in an area, which these people lack. There are no small and medium enterprises in the northern part of the country for two reasons: people do not have that much money for investment and they are on a continuous move to a new dwelling in another char which hinders creation of a social bond and acquaintance with local people, which is very vital for running a business or even a grocery shop. In the survey, 53 per cent of the respondents said that after displacement, it takes more than six months to have a regular earning as they had before. Some of them claimed that it often takes more than one and a half years to have this income. And 24 per cent of them replied that when they will have a normal regular income as they used to is quite uncertain. After displacement and before getting a normal earning, they are to go through a very critical situation and at this moment they manage to support their life mainly by three ways: migrating to Dhaka, borrowing money from both formal and informal sector and by selling the assets they had. Among these three, most of them see migration to Dhaka as a safer route rather than searching for loans or selling assets because when they want to migrate to the capital city or to some other cities, the money lenders are assured that they will be able to return the money. This sort of money lending is safer for the lenders as the families of the borrowers are within their reach and so there is a little possibility of problems in recovering the money. People get two to three thousand taka from the micro-finance institutions or from other formal sectors with a huge amount of interest rate, give the money to the family for running the cost of one month before he sends some money. As disasters cause a huge loss to agriculture, it induces problem for both the agri-labours and the farmers. When agricultural output is smaller, it not only harms the farmers but also do the same to the employment scope of these labourers. Economic insecurity sometimes makes char people hostile and it was once very common scenario in Bangladesh that people are fighting, after setting a date, time and venue, for taking control over the chars. It is now outdated but people’s behavioural difference is much more evident. While continuously going through the days of toil and hardship, they become restless and cruel. There may be some other factors but there is no way to ignore that economic insolvency and insecurity make their behaviour and social life different from others. Policymakers and development agents should notice these inhuman scenarios. There are lots of painful stories to hear and millions of lives to safe; otherwise the entire gamut of development interventions, both by the government and non-government sectors, will be questioned. We need to see the reality in the ground and come up with proper policy and interventions immediately with sufficient allocation of money.
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