Jakarta – The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) launched a new report titled ‘Forensic Insights for Future Resilience: Learning from Past Disasters’. The report calls for a forensic approach to analysing disasters.
The report, released on September 17, ahead of the UN-convened Summit of the Future, is a special edition of the UN’s Global Assessment Report (GAR) and emphasises the need to learn from past disasters to inform preventative actions and build resilience in the face of growing climate-related risks.
As countries face increasingly severe and frequent disasters, often exacerbated by the climate crisis, the GAR 2024 report argues that forensic investigations of “disaster DNA” are essential for understanding the root causes of disasters and creating policies that can reduce their impacts.
“Every disaster is too precious to waste. We must use every disaster to draw lessons,” said Kamal Kishore, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction and Head of UNDRR. “This means conducting a deep technical analysis to understand the underlying factors that led to the disaster.”
The report presents ten case studies from recent global disasters, each focusing on the factors that either aggravated or mitigated the disaster’s impacts. The studies provide recommendations for building resilience across three key areas: People, Planet, and Prosperity. For example, Cyclone Freddy’s devastating impact on Malawi in 2023 was not only due to the cyclone’s record-breaking longevity but also to the country’s weak infrastructure and transportation networks. These weaknesses hindered evacuations and the delivery of emergency aid, resulting in around 1,200 deaths.
In contrast, Mexico City’s response to a 2017 earthquake was lauded in the report as a success story. After learning from the deadly 1985 earthquake, which claimed tens of thousands of lives, the city revised its building codes and laws. As a result, when the 2017 earthquake struck, despite a much larger population, the death toll was significantly reduced to approximately 326.
Irasema Alcántara-Ayala, a co-author of the report and professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, highlighted the importance of investigating the root causes of disasters. “Disasters are the culmination of overlooked vulnerabilities. By focusing on the root causes, forensic investigations of disasters offer policymakers a blueprint for building resilience into the fabric of sustainable development.”
The UN report emphasizes that understanding how past disasters unfolded helps expose vulnerabilities in economic systems, ecosystems, and institutions, providing valuable insights for policymakers. It enables governments to prioritize investments in resilience, ensuring that development efforts reduce future disaster risks.
Roger Pulwarty, Senior Scientist with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and another co-author of the report, argued that disaster risk reduction should not be treated as an afterthought to climate adaptation. Instead, addressing systemic risks is critical to achieving climate goals and ensuring sustainable development.
The report’s release comes ahead of the UN’s Summit of the Future, which aims to build global consensus on how to safeguard the future. The findings of GAR 2024 underscore the importance of proactive disaster risk management, particularly for the world’s poorest communities and Least Developed Countries, which are disproportionately affected by disasters. (nsh)
Banner photo: UNDRR GAR 2024 report cover