Calls mount for disaster risk management for businesses

Rendi A. Witular in the Jakarta Post: Disasters are having a growing impact on businesses.  The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and the Chao Phraya River floods in Thailand have focused attention on the growing impact of disasters on the private sector.

Businesses suffer direct losses when they have invested in locating factories, offices, plants, warehouses and other facilities in locations exposed to hazards such as floods, cyclones, earthquakes or tsunamis, without adequately investing to reduce the risks.

Aimed at making the world a safer place, policy makers and business leaders from around the world gathered in Geneva from May 19 to 23 for the Fourth Session of the Global Platform conference on disaster risk reduction held by the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR).

Attended by around 4,000 representatives of governments, businesses, NGOs, scientists and academics, the forum is expected to mobilize resources to create awareness and ways to reduce risks stemming from disasters.

“This gathering shows the cross-cutting nature of disaster risk reduction. The representatives are the keys to building resilience to disasters and making our communities safer. This is our collective and shared responsibility,” said United Nations deputy secretary-general Jan Eliasson on Tuesday. Eliasson explained that no country had a leading model of disaster risk reduction....

A 1916 train derailment in France