Global collaboration will improve India’s mitigation initiatives

By Sreeram Chaulia, professor and dean at the Jindal School of International Affairs

Can India, which has earned a reputation for effectively mitigating and managing natural disasters at home, provide international leadership in preparing for and coping with calamities worldwide?

This is the underlying premise of a diplomatic push by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in setting up a global Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) with a funding pledge of ₹480 crore ($70 million). Modi used the G20 summit in Osaka to promote the idea and invite greater international participation. His vision is of CDRI acting as a convening body that pools best practices and resources from around the world for reshaping construction, transportation, energy, telecommunication and water, so that building in these core infrastructure sectors factors in natural catastrophes.

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Japan is prone to recurrent killer earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons, but it has overcome these liabilities through improved building rules, stricter zoning laws and regulations since the 1980s, making it the world’s safest and most disaster-resilient country. In Latin America, Chile has similarly learnt lessons from past catastrophes and drastically cut down casualties and losses from disasters through well-regulated building standards. India is therefore looking at Japan to guide CDRI and also tie in disaster-resilient criteria into Japanese foreign aid to developing countries. China remains the indisputable global number one in infrastructure construction and finance, but its humongous Belt and Road Initiative is not known for environmentally-sound or disaster-proof projects. Japan and India could offer an alternative paradigm in quality infrastructure that is humane and safe. An Indo-Japanese push via the vehicle of CDRI makes eminent humanitarian and geopolitical sense.