Is Asia a rising star or a poster child for disaster?

Emerging Asia, which covers India, China, and Southeast Asia, will be revelling in an economic growth rate of 6.3% annually from 2018 to 2022, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). But there’s a hitch: Asia is also waist-deep in alarming projections of deaths, damage to livelihoods and property, and worsening inequality because of disasters and climate change. Asia’s robust economic growth is not underwritten.

The latest assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s largest scientific body formed to study climate change, found that “People living in low-lying coastal zones and floodplains are probably most at risk from climate change impacts in Asia. Half of Asia’s urban population lives in these areas. Compounding the risk for coastal communities, Asia has more than 90% of the global population exposed to tropical cyclones.”

Poverty and inequality in Asia’s populous, but also rich, cities could spell doom for Asia’s economy. Governments may not be equipped to handle the brisk pace of poor people from rural areas migrating to urban migration in droves.

Poor transportation infrastructure and policies, weak urban design, and extreme weather events create a perfect storm of risk — water-borne diseases, loss of income from punishing traffic jams, and damaged livelihood assets—for poor people living in cities.

Asia loses money to disasters at a staggering price tag of at least US$4.5 billion annually.

Many farmers do not know about nor have access to capital or technology for climate-adaptive cropping techniques. Super typhoons, like Haiyan in 2013, can wipe out swathes of land planted to agricultural crops, ruining the source of livelihoods of farmers.

To protect the future of Asia, leaders attending the 8th Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (AMCDRR) held recently in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, should strengthen the ability of local organisations and communities to deal with disasters, invest in social safety nets, and pour more funds into disaster risk reduction work.

These three key actions will ensure that Asia is prepared for the harrowing impacts of climate change and disasters that will batter the region.

At the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016, donors and international nongovernmental organisations (INGOs) signed the “Grand Bargain”, an agreement that seeks to empower local organisations to lead humanitarian work instead of INGOs.

Local organisations know the local context better and enjoy smoother working relationships with local governments than INGOs. However, local NGOs are merely sub-contracted by INGOs during emergencies and are not involved in designing or leading responses.

Local NGOs’ share of humanitarian funds is also miniscule. The Global Humanitarian Assistance 2015 report found that in 2014 only 0.2% of humanitarian funding was coursed through local NGOs.

Meanwhile, a 2015 report from the Overseas Development Institute found that United Nations agencies and large INGOs receive about 80% of funding from developed countries.

Asian ministers must continue to lobby with donors and INGOs to realise the vision of the Grand Bargain. They must build the capacity of their national disaster management offices, transforming these into centres of excellence that combine local knowledge with state-of-the-art technology to respond to disasters.

Shocks and stresses negatively affect poor countries more. South Asia suffers from floods 15 times greater, as a percentage of GDP, than OECD countries. Safety nets like insurance, conditional cash transfers, minimum wage legislation, and access to essential services are crucial for poor people to bounce back from a crisis.

Any humanitarian intervention must form part of or support sustainable development programmes. Putting social protection mechanisms will also “support the reduction and redistribution of unpaid care work by supporting parental leave and basic income for older persons.

Without these measures, it is women who will spend the time and meet the costs of caring for children or the elderly”, according to an Oxfam report.

Disaster risk financing (DRF) is crucial in promoting resilience. Complemented with a mix of solutions and political will, DRF has proven to be cost-effective. Funding from the OECD DAC countries on DRR ranged between 2.9% and 6.2% of total humanitarian spending over the past five years, increasing incrementally over the period. The 2018 AMCDRR is a chance to push for more international financing for DRR.

The calls for governments to deal with disasters have grown more urgent as crisis after crisis unravels in Asia.

Home to eight of top 10 countries with the most number of disasters over the period 2004 to 2015, according to the Asian Development Bank, Asia must race against time to prepare its citizens for an uncertain future.

Janice Ian Manlutac is the Asia Pacific Regional Programme Manager for Oxfam America’s Humanitarian Department. She is now managing the Asia Pacific Local Innovation for Transformation (AP-Lift) Project being implemented in the Philippines, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.