- Title: KENYA: African governments urged to invest more in disaster preparedness
- Date: 11th May 2009
- Summary: NAIROBI, KENYA (MAY 8, 2009) (REUTERS) MARGARETA WAHLSTROM, UN ASSISTANT SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR DISASTER REDUCTION, TALKING TO JOURNALIST WAHLSTROM'S HANDS (SOUNDBITE) (English) MARGARETA WAHLSTROM, UN ASSISTANT SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR DISASTER REDUCTION, SAYING "If you are going to minimize the impact of disasters, which is what we are doing, then it is necessary through
- Embargoed: 26th May 2009 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Kenya
- Country: Kenya
- Topics: International Relations,Nature / Environment
- Reuters ID: LVACMDTIT88QPI6BQR4XOJ8RTUTL
- Story Text: African governments are investing too little in disaster preparedness, putting their citizens at risk in the occurrence of natural catastrophes, the United Nation's top official on disaster reduction said.
With stretched national budgets going to developing emerging economies, the peril of floods, drought, cyclones and earthquakes has fallen down the priority list in Africa.
"If you are going to minimize the impact of disasters, which is what we are doing, then it is necessary through public education, through collaboration, that disasters are not a criticism to anyone and nature does not negotiate, but we can prepare by having better knowledge, stronger institutions and a desire to allocate resources differently," said Margareta Wahlstrom, UN assistant secretary-general for disaster risk reduction.
Every year, disasters strike millions of people worldwide, and vulnerability levels in Africa are particularly high. In 2008, natural calamities killed 235,000 people and affected 214 million more.
Wahlstrom, who was speaking at the UN's offices in Nairobi, said response to disasters has to be a good mix of both planning and implementation in order to reduce fatalities.
"It's the disaster management perspective, which is about preparedness, having resources, having the knowledge, having better early warning systems and having the disaster response factors linked into the early warning systems, because otherwise it's of no use. It does not matter how good your data is if you do not have anyone that can translate that to action," Wahlstrom added.
Wahlstrom also warned against the failure to learn from disasters and said that governments should use existing indigenous knowledge to help mitigate calamities.
"An opportunity is always immediately after a disaster, in the aftermath, this is what we sometimes call trigger events. Use that event to get changes to the better, do not wait until a year has gone or one or two years, just demonstrate immediately that if we change a little bit the way we do business here, next time we will have a better chance to anticipate what is happening," added Wahlstrom.
Over 90 percent of disaster fatalities occur in developing nations, costing them billions of dollars, according to the world body. Per capita, Africa is the most affected by calamities, especially drought, epidemics and famine, it said. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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