Prepare for increasing disasters

British Red Cross: A review of the Red Cross’ work preparing for disasters in Nepal demonstrates that there are significant long-term economic benefits from investing early in reducing the risk of disasters. Around 9,000 people in 15 vulnerable Nepalese communities covered by the Red Cross programme are seeing these benefits in several ways.

The programme reduces the impact of natural hazards such as flash floods and landslides, through measures such as the construction of flood containing walls, planting trees along riverbanks, maintenance of wells to protect water sources and construction of evacuation shelters.

By reducing the likelihood of disasters damaging land or crops, the communities save the money they would have needed to spend on repairing any damage – they also gain the revenue from their fields remaining productive. This makes a particularly big difference with initiatives such as building dams designed to protect against seasonal flooding. Previously floods would have made pieces of land unusable for periods of time every year – now they can be used all year round to grow crops.

Between the money saved on recovery and additional revenue gained from people being able to carry on with their livelihoods uninterrupted, the economic benefit greatly outweighs the investment made in the programme by the Red Cross.

…The success of the programme in Nepal demonstrates a strong economic justification for continuing and replicating the programme with more communities in places like Nepal and Bangladesh, where climate change is impacting the frequency and intensity of natural disasters….

A rural landscape in Kathmandu Valley, shot by Till Niermann, Wikimedia Commons, under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2