Twenty years ago, the European Commission started DIPECHO, a people-oriented disaster preparedness programme helping communities at risk of disasters to better prepare themselves. It has since invested €325 million to boost communities' resilience and reduce their vulnerability. What started as a small programme has today become mainstream practice; across the world, risk management is better understood and increasingly figure in local development strategies.
The European Commission's Directorate-General for European and Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid operations continue to develop methods and vital evidence to assist others in making appropriate investment decisions. In Nepal, for example, where floods are a recurrent phenomenon, there have been no casualties since 2008 in the areas where a community-based early warning system had been implemented with EU support.
In Mindanao in December 2012, thanks to an established contingency plan, the inhabitants of La Flora Barangay were able to quickly evacuate after being informed a day before about the anticipated landfall of Typhoon Bopha. Houses were ‘anchored’ to withstand the strong winds and flooding and no loss of houses was reported. Five years ago, the Serrana region in Brazil was hit by devastating floods. In 2013, the region was again affected by floods and landslides. But meanwhile community-based disaster risk management had been implemented in some neighbourhoods. These were the only neighbourhoods without casualties.
These examples are tangible proof that the consequences of disasters can be significantly lessened. Many disasters and most hazards are predictable: we know where people are vulnerable, to what and why. Instead of only focusing on costly emergency responses, international efforts should help governments and societies to address extreme poverty and vulnerability, invest in risk management and build capacities for pre-emptive and early action.
DIPECHO has paved the way for positive change, contributing to much needed, larger and effective EU investments. Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and resilience considerations are now systematically integrated into humanitarian aid programmes and the European Commission dedicates about 13% of its humanitarian budget to DRR activities.
Along with its Member States, the EU played a leading role in the Sendai negotiations and in 2016 agreed to an Action Plan on Sendai implementation, supporting a disaster risk-informed approach to all EU policies, including civil protection, climate change adaptation, development cooperation, and humanitarian aid actions.
We are at a turning point. The vision set out in Sendai, the climate negotiations in Paris, the 2030 Agenda and the World Humanitarian Summit earlier this year, is to leave no-one behind and to shift from delivering aid to ending need. This vision must be put into practice, and there is still a long way to go.
The EU supports these international efforts to reduce disaster losses and suffering and will continue its work to build a culture of safety and resilience among vulnerable communities around the world.