Today is the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction. The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction has recently published the Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2025, which estimates that the true cost of disasters is nearly $2.3 trillion. This year’s call is to “Fund Resilience, Not Disasters” as part of the international day, with the UNDRR arguing for a “decisive shift” towards funding resilience now to avoid paying for disasters later.
Understanding disasters and resilience: three challenges
This raises many questions. How are ‘disasters’ understood? And in turn how is ‘resilience’ imagined? These are questions discussed in my book ‘Navigating Uncertainty’ (open access) and in particular in the chapter on disasters. There has been a huge amount of investment in disaster risk reduction, much of which is focused on developing early warning and anticipation capacities. While there has been growing recognition that disasters are often linked as part of ‘compounding’ and ‘cascading’ effects, with ‘multi-hazard frameworks’ connecting different disasters, some problematic assumptions remain.
This article is from Zimbabweland, a blog written by IDS Research Fellow Ian Scoones. Zimbabweland focuses on issues related to rural livelihoods and land reform in Zimbabwe.