Preparing for disasters

Across the country, millions of people wait for the next disaster. The Philippines is an archipelago of immense beauty and tragedy. Surviving disasters such as typhoons, flooding, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions is simply part of our lives.

In the immediate aftermath, we rescue, we count the dead, the destruction and mourn the awful random loss, shocked again by the power of the forces of nature.

Every disaster exposes the strengths and weaknesses of the community which has been struck in many different ways: its leaders’ politics, economic policies and the community itself’s ability to help itself, in other words its very unity is tested.

As a journalist, I’ve been privileged and humbled to witness the impact of disasters around the region. I was most challenged and affected by covering the death and destruction in Leyte after Typhoon Yolanda or Haiyan as it was known internationally.

My grandfather was born there, specifically in San Joaquin in 1900, the son of a carpenter. He loved to tell the story of how he would walk barefoot for an hour to get to school in Palo, carrying his shoes, then put them on once he got there because he didn’t want to wear them out.

When I arrived in his birthplace that day in 2013, makeshift crosses garlanded with small flowers and messages scrawled in pen were scattered over an area that had become a mass grave. Then I saw one with my own name “Pedrosa,” then another and another.

I couldn’t help but remember that moment last month in Geneva, Switzerland of all places. Natural disasters happen all over the world and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction agency had asked me to attend its Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction to moderate a High-Level Dialogue on “Leaving No-one Behind.” Climate change is making disasters such as forest fires, flooding and many other phenomena more likely than ever and there are global efforts to try to prevent or mitigate the worst kinds of risk by, for example, investing in local action and empowering those most at risk.

The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres has made a call to “leave no-one behind” aiming to ensure that the needs of the poorest, most marginalised and at-risk groups are prioritised in disaster prevention and response. The idea behind the panel session that I moderated is that Disaster Risk Reduction  national and local strategies should seek to reduce the impact of disasters on the most vulnerable and marginalised and should be developed through the participation of women, youth, older people, persons with disabilities amongst other groups whose capacities are critical to achieving strong inclusive outcomes.   

It emphasised the importance of engaging the poorest, most marginalised and vulnerable groups in designing and implementing disaster risk reduction strategies and plans that aim to reach every person at risk of, or impacted by disasters - regardless of their identity, economic or societal status, gender, age, disability, ethnicity or other factor.

The importance of inclusivity (to use the UN jargon), recognises that the poor, the marginalised, and the most vulnerable groups are worst affected by disasters. Their coping capacity may be limited due to structural inequalities embedded in national governance frameworks, such as gender discrimination and poverty, and the economic consequences of disaster losses may have longer term economic impact, perpetuating or increasing the inequality gap. 

Last week’s Global Platform was a crucial opportunity to scale up action to create concrete change for vulnerable people. Despite global commitments, those most affected and vulnerable are not receiving the assistance they need. Older persons, people with disabilities, women, poor and socially marginalised people with lack of access to information, decision making structures, resources and social justice are disproportionately affected by hazards. Displaced persons also often live in disaster prone areas. Global investment in adaptation, risk reduction and preparedness is not prioritizing these people and often fails to reach vulnerable communities at the local level where the need is greatest. As the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement has found in its 2018 World Disasters Report, millions are being left behind.

The panel looked at essential questions such as: who is currently left behind and why? What does an inclusive effective process look like? What is the enabling environment for inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction (i.e. who is responsible for building trust)?  What legal, policy solutions exist? What elements do lawmakers need to be in place in order to align legislative work for inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction? What financing solutions exist?

We examined the question from global, national and local perspectives with speakers from Barbados, Ecuador, financial experts and the Secretary-General of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the world’s foremost humanitarian responder to natural disasters.

Big questions and lofty answers with long-term strategies, but as we talked my mind would shift back and forth from Geneva to the poor communities in Leyte and elsewhere in the Philippines.

Sadly it’s often only when terrible things happen that we realize that when we’ve lost everything, all we have is each other. It is this grassroots reality at the heart of the experience of a natural disaster that is the saving grace and at the core of the international and local reaction to disaster. We have to help each other because in the end that’s all there is.

(This is the first of my regular Saturday morning columns with the Philippine STAR. I’m hoping to provide a global context for issues that concern us all as Filipinos, global citizens and humans. I’m looking forward to connecting with readers. My Twitter handle is @vpedrosa and Facebook page is Veronica Pedrosa.)