Disaster risk reduction low priority in int'l development aid

MANILA, Philippines - Funding for disaster risk reduction remains a low priority and only constitutes a “tiny fraction” of development aid, a report by international donors said.

The Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) said only 0.4 percent of the total amount spent on international aid was allotted for disaster risk reduction (DRR) efforts.

“Essentially, for every $100 spent on development aid, just 40 cents has been invested in defending that aid from the impact of disasters,” GFDRR said.

“DRR has been at best a very low priority over the past two decades,” it added.

The GFDRR is a partnership of 41 countries and eight international organizations that seek to help developing countries reduce their vulnerability to natural hazards. The partnership was formed in 2006 and aims to mainstream DRR in the development strategies of countries.

The GFDRR said of the $3 trillion aid committed by the international community in the last 20 years, $106.7 billion was allocated to disasters.

However, only $13.6 billion was allotted for risk reduction measures before disasters strike compared with $23.3 billion spent on reconstruction and rehabilitation and $69.9 billion channeled on response.

“The trend for commitments related to disasters has been on the increase since the late 1990s, but this increase is largely accounted for by activities undertaken in the aftermath of events rather than by DRR,” the report read.

The GFDRR said DRR as a proportion of financing for disasters was much higher in the two decades than in the past few years. This was attributed to large investments on flood prevention infrastructure and low levels of emergency response before 2000.

“Since 2003, financing of DRR have been roughly stable at about 10% of overall financing on disasters each year,” GFDRR said.

The report said funding has been skewed towards post-disaster financing rather than prevention. It cited the donors’ response to the Kashmir earthquake in October 2005 and the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004

The GFDRR said that in 2005, at least $3.3 billion was committed after these two disasters alone, a quarter of the $13.5 billion spent on DRR in all countries over a period of 20 years.

“Given the scale of these events and the costs in emergency response and reconstruction, it might be wondered what more it would take to increase financing of reducing disaster risk,” the report read.

The GFDRR report also revealed that funding for DRR activities is concentrated in just a few recipient countries, with all but Bangladesh of the top 10 recipients being middle income countries.

China, Indonesia, Philippines, Argentina, Brazil, Russia, Sri Lanka, Lebanon and Poland were the other nine top recipients of flood prevention and control funding from 1991 to 2010.

The Philippines, which received $834.6 million in the last 20 years, ranked fourth.

“Similarly, 114 recipients of DRR over the 20 years do not even make it into the top 50, all of them receiving less funding than the $23.9 million received by Bosnia-Herzegovina,” GFDRR said.

Bosnia-Herzegovina ranked 50th recipient of DRR financing from 1991 to 2010.

The report also found out that financing does not take into account the capacity of governments to reduce their own levels of risk.

Low-income countries with middle to high levels of risk and are often affected by drought have also received “negligible” international financing of DRR.

The GFDRR said 12 of the 19 countries that have received only $2 per capita of DRR financing over the past 20 years are low-income countries.

“Sub-Saharan African countries are heavily represented in this group, accounting for 10 of the 12,” it said.

The report, nevertheless, cited the efforts of some countries including the Philippines to invest on DRR.

“There is evidence that financing of the richer middle-income countries has declined, especially from the mid-2000s onwards,” GFDRR said.

“The most important positive is that some countries (such as Indonesia and the Philippines) have invested heavily, and continue to do so, in reducing their own disaster risk levels, often allocating much higher volumes than international financing.”

The report said 80 million persons have been affected by disasters in the Philippines. The country has spent $502.45 million on disaster-related disaster response.