Experts urge more prevention efforts, financial resilience to manage disasters
By Alessandra Cardone
Experts at the 2018 European Forum on Disaster Risk Reduction urged on Thursday more financial resilience, prevention efforts, and an integrated approach to better address disasters at global level.
[...]
[Veronica Scotti, chairperson of Global Partnership Swiss RE,] noted that the distribution of "exposure" to disaster risk remained deeply uneven in European countries, where less than 10 percent of families were insured against seismic events, and less than 50 percent against flooding.
"Countries such as Switzerland, France, and Norway have an obligatory insurance system, and the UK has an annual insurance program in case of flooding, yet the more vulnerable members of the European Community are still exposed," Scotti said.
"We must move away from an economically unsustainable model for post-disaster management to one of pre-disaster management."
[...]