Resilience to disasters must be built in to new developments

The World Conference for Disaster Risk Reduction in March must agree on an updated framework for action to mitigate human and material loss, says Margareta Wahlström

TEN years ago this month, representatives of 168 United Nations member states met in Kobe, the capital of Japan’s Hyogo Prefecture, to decide how to manage risk better in the wake of the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami, which claimed more than 227,000 lives.

Over five days, which included the anniversary of the 1995 Kobe earthquake, they crafted the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA), composed of a raft of measures designed to “reduce the losses in lives and social, economic, and environmental assets of communities and countries”.