Disaster risk outpaces resilience in Asia-Pacific

MANILA, Philippines — Disaster risk is outpacing resilience in Asia-Pacific and putting people in this most disaster-prone region at risk of being pushed back into poverty, a United Nations regional commission warned.

The latest report of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) said that the greatest impacts of disasters are in countries which have the least capacity to prepare or respond to these events.

“Disasters can very quickly strip poor people of their livelihoods, bringing deeply disruptive impacts that push them back into absolute poverty or trap them in an intergenerational transmission of poverty,” Shamshad Akhtar, executive secretary of the ESCAP,  said last week in Bangkok.

According to the Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2017, between 2000 and 2015, the low- and lower middle-income countries in the region experienced almost 15 times more disaster deaths than the region’s high-income countries.

Beyond the human costs, ESCAP research indicates that between 2015 and 2030, 40 percent of global economic losses from disasters will be in Asia and the Pacific. The region accounts for around 36 percent of global gross domestic product.