Kuwait Times

Disaster early warning systems ‘still missing’ in 100 countries

-

Government­s of 100 countries still lacking disaster early warning systems have a duty to invest in the projects, which could save lives and property, and reap longer-term economic benefits, the UN’s meteorolog­ical agency said. With vulnerable countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific Islands among those still without early warning systems, the WMO said better disaster preparedne­ss could help government­s improve farm outputs, boost safety in sectors such as shipping and transport, and protect people.

“The money that we invest in the met (meteorolog­ical) service, you get it back tenfold in terms of economic benefits,” World Meteorolog­ical Organizati­on (WMO) Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in the Mexican resort of Cancun at the end of a two-day conference on early warning systems. Early warning systems cost between $10 million and $100 million, depending on the size of the country. The Genevabase­d WMO is working with organizati­ons such as the World Bank to roll out systems, with Morocco among countries being used as a benchmark, Taalas said.

The Multi-Hazard Early Warning Conference was held ahead of a UN disaster risk reduction conference, which started yesterday and continues until tomorrow. The disaster risk reduction conference marks the first major meeting since 2015, when the Sendai framework was hammered out in Japan, setting ambitious targets for government­s to cut deaths and economic losses from disasters by 2030. The seven Sendai targets also include limiting damage to infrastruc­ture and disruption to basic services such as health and education, and widening access to early warning systems.

Robert Glasser, head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), said the cost of natural disasters is skyrocketi­ng, fuelled by increasing climate change and a lack of risk awareness in economic developmen­t, with people building in high risk areas such as flood zones. “Even though often the human impact of conflict and conflict displaceme­nt is prominentl­y in the press, actually the displaceme­nt from natural disasters is far greater and often unreported as well,” Glasser said, pointing to smaller-scale disasters that often go unnoticed by the media. Natural disasters force 26 million people into poverty each year and cost the equivalent of $520 billion in lost consumptio­n, according to the World Bank. The United Nations has called on government­s to spend at least 1 percent of developmen­t aid by 2020 on disaster preparatio­n, but they currently spend just half that amount. —Reuters

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Kuwait