Major opportunity for us to do better at times of disaster

By John Richardson, Australian Red Cross National Resilience Adviser, Emergency Services?

This week in Brisbane, Australia is host to the United Nations and many ministerial and senior officials from 40 countries and organisations across the Asia Pacific Region, as 3000 of us all come together to give continued impetus to the increasingly critical disaster risk reduction. The Asia Pacific Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction happens every two years and helps keep countries, organisations, and I hope, individuals focused on the need to invest more money, time and action in reducing disaster risk. This helps us achieve the goals of Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-30.?

Disasters disrupt peoples’ lives, their hopes, goals and aspirations for years and decades, whether it is through the loss of lives, the burden of mental health, the loss of business, or just not doing as well at school. They also cost communities, organisations and government significant money; funds which can be used for other priorities, whether it is budget repair, or school or education funding. Hence, disaster risk reduction is critical to enable us, and the communities in which we live to achieve our goals with minimal disruption.??

The Conference comes at a critical time, as scientists tell us that climate change is fuelling the events that we have been experiencing here and across the region and will push extreme weather events into places they haven’t been before, and they will happen more often. We also can’t forget the challenge that the COVID 19 pandemic posed our communities, and currently Exotic Animal Diseases outbreaks in the region pose a major threat to our rural communities, on top of drought, fire, flood, and COVID. We should also recognise that urbanisation, and Australia is one of the most urbanised nations in the world, also amplifies these threats simply by putting more people at risk in a location, and cost of living and increasing inequality makes it harder for people to take action to prepare for disaster.?

We at Australian Red Cross call on our governments to continue to increase investment in disaster risk reduction through longer-term predictable funding streams for community-based resilience. There has been a positive start, and the National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework provides a strong architecture from which to act. We also want to see greater coordination across the disaster risk reduction sector. Many organisations have rightly seen the importance of DRR and are scaling up their activities. These need to be coordinated for best effort and effect in communities that already have a lot on their plate.?

I was fortunate enough to attend the Sendai Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Japan in 2015. The energy and focus that comes from having so many people with passion and singular focus gives me hope that we can reduce disaster risk, and hence impacts so that the disaster is a bump in a road that slows us down and is a bit inconvenient for a short period of time, rather than a car crash and all the pain and suffering that can bring.?