Today more than ever, I believe in the power of Disaster
Risk Reduction. In the power of understanding risk and acting
on it in timely fashion to make sure that our society can continue to function
even in presence of extreme hazardous events. There is already an extensive community
of people who has been working hard to engrave
in the hearts and minds of politicians, technocrats, decisions makers and people in general that we
“ the human race” have the power to
manage our own risk and minimize the risk of disaster. Yet despite our progress
we have to be honest in recognising that we have not yet achieved our goals.
Yesterday, the terrible event that we knew for years was
coming, befell Nepal and the surrounding region. A 7.9 earthquake struck Nepal,
India, China and Bangladesh, at the shallow depth of just 15 km (approximately). We, the DRR practitioners
knew it, the politicians knew it, the scientific community new it, were the
people in those countries really informed about it? The answer is yes. But a better question could
be: did they really consciously understand
the fact that it could happen? For this,
I still struggle to respond. Last night I contacted all my friends in Nepal , and fortunately all of them were
safe. As we would hope for an organisation of their nature - Most of them are
part of the National Society for Earthquake Technology. When I went to Nepal to work with this
remarkable organization, I was astonished to see the impeccable work Amod Mani Dixit and his team have done after more than 18 years of work (at that time
2009).
NSET was created because of the conviction of Amod - that
Nepal needed to be protected for the imminent risk of earthquake that we know affects
the region. Kathmandu a heavily
populated city, where the people live in buildings without any kind of earthquake
resistant techniques, particularly in the most historical parts and with a very
compact urban space, was obviously defined as the city with the highest risk of
disaster due to earthquakes. On the other hand, rural areas with precarious buildings,
limited road infrastructure, high level of poverty, and so on and so forth, was
also the main motivation for NSET to establish the most professional Earthquake
Risk Management organizations in the region.
A combination of hard science and social science has been
the approach used by NSET until now, very qualified Nepali team of civil engineers
and architects working hand by hand with anthropologist, sociologist social
workers and journalist. This is the key to success for several projects implemented
all over Nepal and South East Asian region.
But, why am I telling you all this? The answer is simple. I want us to avoid that under-informed people start judging Nepal for a lack of preparedness or
negligence. Many efforts have been done by Nepali and
other South East Asian leaders, academics and practitioners, to make sure that
the population is informed and knows what to do in case of an earthquake, they
have also worked hard to convince governments and donors to invest in retrofitting
of hospitals, schools and other vital buildings. School safety has been a massive
priority, implemented with the most high quality standards. I personally had
the opportunity to attend one school camp, when NSET invited Japanese students
that experienced the Kobe earthquake to share their experience and knowledge
with Nepalese students. Every year for the last 10 years these events have taken
place all over Nepal.
There is a representative of NSET in every district of Nepal
working together with the local governments and training of masons is the one of the most important programs. There are masons
trained all over the country by professional staff. I could name hundreds of programs and I still wouldn't have gotten through them all.
My point is that we, the international community, if we have
any intention to support the government of Nepal in the relief, recovery, rehabilitation
and development interventions, we have to be conscious of the fact that we are
not starting from scratch. Therefore,
shelter, water, sanitation, livelihood, infrastructure and all kind of interventions
have to be engraved into the strategies that several national organizations and
the government have already been doing for years.
Today, once more, the
new Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction makes completely sense, and every
single priority must become the guide for any humanitarian and development
intervention that will be done.
Let’s not forget the main point that we discussed at the
World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction: “Tackling underlying risk factors is the key
for DRR”. Poor, uneducated and marginalized
populations are suffering and will continue to suffer if each country and
individual in this world do not start to support more actively the efforts being
made to manage the risks of disasters that we are all exposed to.
For more information about NSET: http://nset.org.np/nset2012/
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