“As the Sendai Framework tells us, disaster risk management is everyone’s business,” said Ms. Estelle Parker, of the Depart of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia, a country at the forefront of public-private partnerships to curb risk.

Global Platform host Mexico is also a case in point.

"The private sector in Mexico has taken its reponsbility very seriously about this. We all believe in the importance of having a new way of thinking. I'm happy to say that companies and the government are working together to achieve this," said Mr. Luis Felipe Puente, head of the country's Civil Protection department.

Rising disaster losses are putting severe strain on public finances and, in many countries, acting as a brake on economic and social development. Thus, they pose a threat not only to achieving the aims of the Sendai Framework, but also our global effort to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, as well as the Paris Agreement on climate change.

“Sustainability can’t be achieved without the private sector,” said Dr. V Thiruppugazh, Joint Secretary of the National Disaster Management Authority of India, where three national chambers of commerce and industry are working with the authorities to mitigate and reduce disaster risk.

ARISE is a voluntary group of more than 140 companies and organizations, headquartered in 38 nations and active in 150 countries around the world.

“We need to bring in the people who create the risk. I used to be one of them,” said ARISE board member Mr. Aris Papadopoulos, former chief of construction materials group Titan America and founder of the Resilience Action Fund.

People may question why companies continue to stoke risk.

“It’s because it’s legal, customers are prepared to accept it, and because they can make money from it,” he said, calling for a halt to that mindset.

Date:

23 May 2017

Sources:

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR)

Themes:

Community-based DRR, Private Sector, Urban Risk & Planning, Governance, Economics of DRR, Disaster Risk Management, Social Impacts & Social Resilience, Critical Infrastructure