Resource book ‘Counting Disasters’ soon to be in market to assist policymakers

Islamabad

Providing a comprehensive insight of the impact of disasters occurred in Pakistan since its inception, a resource book titled ‘Counting Disasters’ will soon be in the market to assist policymakers and researchers in drafting sustainable disaster management policies.

Pakistan is a developing country and every year several disasters strike Pakistan's already stagnating economy and expose the vulnerability, poverty and underdevelopment of disaster hit communities. Since the inception in 1947, Pakistan has witnessed all forms of natural disasters including geological, hydrological, climatological and biological disasters. Every year hundred and thousands of Pakistani's are affected by disasters. The disaster's not only affect their health but also affect their homes, fields, and livelihood but also drag them more in poverty.

“The advocates of alternative perspective of looking at disasters, maintain that where disasters bring widespread destruction, can also provide an opportunity to correct many wrongs by taking appropriate measures to reduce disaster risks and building capacities. However, for this to happen proper planning is required,” said the writer of the book Tailal Masood, a development practitioner.

He said that the disaster risk reduction is conventionally taken as relief, response, early recovery and reconstruction which should specifically be integrated in planning processes at all levels starting from community to national level focusing on development plans, disaster response plans, contingency plans, National as well as Provincial disaster risk reduction policies and plans. “However, to materialise this, proper historical data and trends are required to understand the impacts and cost of disasters for effective disaster management planning as well as for the consolidation of efforts by different actors committed to reduce disaster risks,” he said.

Tailal pointed out that the need for systematic data for disaster mitigation and prevention is an emerging and increasing concern of both development and response agencies. “In the past, data needs were addressed on an ad hoc basis, which included collecting the information at the time of the emergency. However, there is a growing importance and understanding that data collection, analysis, and management can help both short and long-term development goals and help to identify and address disaster risks.”

He said the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 also prioritised the importance of data for effective disaster risk reduction and management. Out of the 4 priorities in Sendai Framework the first one is specifically towards understanding disaster risks through disaster loss databases.

“The priority states that the policies and practices for disaster risk management should be based on an understanding of disaster risk in all its dimensions of vulnerability, capacity, exposure of persons and assets, hazard characteristics and the environment and such knowledge can be leveraged for the purpose of pre-disaster risk assessment, for prevention and mitigation and for the development and implementation of appropriate preparedness and effective response to disasters.”

Tailal said that ‘Counting Disasters’ is a pioneering effort to compile a statistical profile of the all disaster events in Pakistan since the inception of the country in 1947. “It took me over three years to complete the data collection, compilation and analysis while covering five core indicators including number of disasters events, number of deaths occurred, number of people injured, number of persons displaced and number of houses damaged.

“The resource book is an effort to understand the impacts of disasters and increasing our ability to increase resilience. It is in its final stages of completion and will be launched soon. The data contained in the resource will be publically available through a website which is being developed coupled with an android application for real time disaster loss reporting,” said the writer.