26 May 2023 – The Indian Express

Disaster Management In India

Context:

• The Disaster Risk Reduction Working Group (DRRWG) just announced its second meeting, which was recently announced by the G20.

Impact of the disaster’s state:

• Four of the top ten most vulnerable countries according to the most recent World Risk Index are G20 countries.
• G20 countries collectively estimate an annual average loss of $218 billion, or 9% of their average annual infrastructure spending.
• According to the XDI Assessment Report 2023, India ranked third among the top 50 countries most at risk from the consequences of climate change in 2050, behind the United States and China.
• With 27 of its 29 states and seven union territories vulnerable to frequent natural disasters like cyclones, earthquakes, landslides, floods, and droughts, India is one of the world’s most disaster-prone nations. According to data, 30 various types of disasters could impair the potential for economic, social, and human growth in India as a whole.
• From 2000 to 2016, India had five big natural catastrophes that claimed 17,671 children’s lives. An estimated 330 million people were impacted by the 2015–2016 drought in ten states, including 37 million children under the age of five.
• According to a report by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) from 2022, India experienced a natural calamity brought on by climate change nearly every day of the year.
• Over 416,667 homes have been demolished, 2,755 people have died, 1.8 million hectares of cropland have been impacted, and close to 70,000 animals have perished as a result of these calamities.
• These include the floods in Amarnath, the uplandslides in Manipur, Cyclone Asani, the Uttarkhanad Avalanche, etc.

Priority areas for the G20 DRRWG include:

Early alert systems for everyone:

• The availability of such systems can be made more widely available by treating them like global public commodities, same to how cyclones are treated.

Infrastructure with a disaster and climate resilience focus:

• utilising multiple approaches to handle intense and extended danger.
• Dispersed events like heatwaves, lightning, localised flooding, and landslides create extensive risk (risk of losses from frequently occurring but mild impacts), which results in significant losses.
• Intensive risk comprises the possibility of suffering losses from rare but significant incidents.

Improving National DRR Financing Frameworks:

• Adaptive financial methods, including reserve money, specialised credit lines, and green finance
• enhancing catastrophe response capabilities and systems:
• by a significant convergence of climate change adaptation and catastrophe risk reduction. Structures for managing food will benefit both.

Ecosystem-based approaches to catastrophe risk are applied:

• by approaching disaster risk reduction as a multi-tiered, multi-sectoral effort, integrating the activities horizontally across sectors and vertically from local to sub-national, national, and global.

Actions Took:

Internationally speaking:

• The goal of the G20’s Disaster Risk Reduction Working Group in 2023 is to promote cooperation among the G20 members, conduct multidisciplinary research, and share best practises in disaster risk reduction.
• The Bali Agenda for Resilience, part of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, 2022 (GP DRR 2022), summarises the results. The conference’s focus was on “From Risk to Resilience: Towards Sustainable Development For All in a Covid-19 Transformed World.”

It emphasised:

• a disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategy that considers the entire society, making sure no one is left behind.
• the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development should continue to place DRR at the centre of all development and financial policies, laws, and plans.
• Keeping greenhouse gas emissions within the range of their ability to be mitigated will help to lessen the frequency and severity of catastrophic occurrences.
• Both disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation seek to lessen vulnerability while boosting capability and resilience.

The 2016 Disaster Resilient Infrastructure Coalition (CDRI):

• It is a global alliance of nations, UN organisations, multilateral development banks, the corporate sector, and academic institutions that seeks to advance infrastructure that is disaster-resistant.
• At the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit in September 2019, it was introduced by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
• The primary goal of CDRI is to build ecological, social, and economic infrastructure that is disaster-resistant.
• Its goal is to advance study and knowledge exchange in the areas of standards, finance, and recovery methods for infrastructure risk management.
• It aspires to bring about significant changes in member nations’ policy frameworks and upcoming infrastructure expenditures, as well as a significant reduction in the financial losses brought on by disasters.
• The Sendai Framework was approved at the 2015 Sendai, Miyagi, Japan, Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction. The Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) was replaced by the Sendai Framework.
• The current Framework is applicable to risks associated with both small- and large-scale, frequent and rare, rapid and slow-onset disasters brought on by natural or man-made hazards, as well as associated environmental, technological, and biological risks and hazards.
• Its goal is to provide direction for the multi-hazard management of catastrophe risk in all facets of development, including at all levels and within and across all industries.

The International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) of the United Nations:

• It is a worldwide framework created by the UN to encourage action to lessen socioeconomic vulnerability, risks from natural hazards, and disasters related to technology and the environment.
• The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) is the name given to the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction in its current incarnation.
• It builds on the knowledge obtained from the period of time known as the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction, which ran from 1990 to 1999.
• The UNDRR adopts the following principles, which were adopted during the aforementioned Decade:
• Guidelines for Natural Disaster Prevention, Preparedness, and Mitigation and its Plan of Action, Yokohama Strategy for a Safer World.

Initiatives by India:

• India is the first nation to have developed a national and local strategy with a short-term objective achievement deadline set for 2020 and has accepted the Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction.
• The Disaster Management Act of 2005 serves as the foundation for disaster risk governance. The 2009 National Policy on Disaster Management, which was implemented in recognition of the significance of State and District level authorities, widened the scope of legislative provisions.
• To further integrate institutional structures and mechanisms with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR), the National Disaster Management Plan was also published in 2016. By including not just the SFDRR but also the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Paris Agreement, the NDMP was further modified in 2019 with the goal of enhancing coherence with the entire post-2015 development agenda.
• Creation of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), which consists of 144 special teams prepared to respond to natural disaster-related occurrences, with 72 units specialising in CBRN and nuclear disasters.
• The Ministry-level Disaster Management Committee (MDMC) is in charge of directing Disaster Management Task Forces to carry out response and recovery-related tasks in the event of a disaster. The MDMC is also in charge of activating or deactivating an urgent disaster response based on the information at hand.
• Social inclusion as a guiding principle for all endeavours, mainstreaming DRR as the foundation of all development, and the Prime Minister’s Ten Point DRR Agenda.
• using structural and non-structural provisions, incorporate DRR within the educational system. This includes the National School Safety Programme, which the NDMA introduced in 2011 using a centralised method.
• Checklist for Natural Disaster Impact Assessment, which mandates that all new projects spending more than one billion rupees undergo an evaluation of both the risks of new hazard-related impacts as a result of the project as well as the expected effects of hazards on the project.
• This is further supported by the Ministry of Finance’s Guidelines (2009), which emphasise the need for additional costs to be allocated towards prevention or mitigation of natural and/or man-made hazards for all projects involving structural assets, including any modifications to existing land-use plans.
• The National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC), which was developed in 2008 in response to climate change concerns, aims to jump-start climate action in the nation at all scales. It is governed by values that prioritise safeguarding the weakest and poorest people, promoting growth through sustainable development, enhancing the use of technology in risk management, and encouraging cross-agency, transboundary cooperation on relevant issues (Gov. of India, 2008).
• The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) made to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2015 were a supplement to the agenda, and the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change has been reactivated.
• State and union territory authorities were required to establish State Disaster Response Funds as well as the National Disaster Response Fund (Das, 2013). The National calamity Response Fund can help States with extensive rehabilitation and reconstruction following a calamity.
• Additionally, National Disaster reduction Funds have been established for DRR and risk reduction efforts, and each level of government is required to imitate them.
• The establishment of National and State Disaster Management funding (N/SDMF), as detailed in the 15th Finance Commission’s framework for sector-specific funding, may help to support this by bolstering local-level mitigation initiatives that are focused on mitigation (20%) and response (80%).
• Disaster Resilient Infrastructure Society Coalition (CDRIS):
• National governments, UN agencies and programmes, multilateral development banks and finance mechanisms, the commercial sector, academic institutions, and research organisations come together to form the CDRI, a worldwide partnership.
• It strives to make infrastructure systems more resilient to risks associated with the climate and natural disasters, ensuring sustainable growth.

Steps to Take:

Insurance:

• Insurance solutions that cover both residential and domestic assets are necessary to increase resilience in the face of climate change.
• To meet the needs of individuals with the lowest purchasing power, the State may need to step in.
• Be established housing insurance for the poor along the lines of agricultural insurance programmes.
• Minimising Response Time: Whether from the State or insurance companies, it is necessary between exposure to climate risk and the accrual of benefit.
• It is possible to use the direct benefit transfer (DBT) architecture.

Integrated Strategy:

• At several sizes (home, community, and city levels), spanning six policy areas (social protection, public health, livelihood, housing, community infrastructure, and urban planning).

Three motivating elements:

• Governance that is capable, responsible, and responsive.
• urban statistics and the climate.
• urban finance and climate.
• To ensure that pro-poor climate resilience solutions to lessen vulnerability, these must be put in place.
• Data governance: It is possible to work together with government databases to identify beneficiaries and satellite imagery to detect flooded areas.

Local governments’ functions:

• By offering fundamental services that are essential to enhancing the resilience of the urban poor, city governments are at the forefront of tackling hazards.
• Incorporating risk reduction into urban management can help city officials increase their resilience.
• Public Involvement: People are the first to notice any climate risk, and their active support will help reduce the risk before any serious harm is done.
• Through the devolution of funds, functions, and functionaries, financial independence and higher financial support are required.