Deal with 'everyday disasters' to eradicate poverty

Small-scale disasters are so frequent that we can call them routine disasters, everyday disasters. And of course, losses from disasters are also increasing, but it is poor communities that bear the brunt of disasters, they are more likely to be affected by a disaster, and less able to recover. And we expect that climate change will continue raising the frequency and intensity of natural disasters.

These routine and everyday disasters do not attract media interest or government response though they cause major loss of livelihoods. Roads are damaged, children cannot go to school, and homes, crops and livestock are lost.

“These everyday disasters hold development back, they undermine development.To eradicate poverty there needs to be a greater emphasis on reducing disaster risks and reducing their impact on the most vulnerable. We have to improve the resilience of poor communities to disasters”, says John Nduna, General Secretary of ACT, in his message for International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

The post 2015 development agenda needs to reduce the impact of everyday disasters as well as major disasters. This will help ending crisis-induced poverty and stop people being pushed below the resilience threshold and would enable communities to cope with shocks without being pushed into poverty, says Nduna.

In developing the post 2015 development agenda, ACT Alliance is working to ensure the participation of the people most at risk to ensure that the future development agenda represents the realities of those directly affected by disasters.