Disaster risk reduction

People living in developing countries are more likely to be affected by natural disasters than developed countries. Caritas Australia strives to be among the first to respond and deliver assistance to communities for both the short and long-term.

The facts

The poor are the most physically, economically, socially and environmentally vulnerable to disasters. Disasters can destroy lives, national economies and development programs alike, setting back years of progress.

Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is an attempt to prepare, mitigate and adapt to the impact of disasters, hopefully decreasing the socio-economic impacts faced by millions of people worldwide every year.

The most common disasters include cyclones, earthquakes, floods and droughts. In 2008 alone, 354 major natural disasters occurred, killing approximately 235,000 people, affecting 214 million more and causing $190 billion damage.

Our Caritas approach

Caritas Australia and our partners are helping communities before, during and after the headlines. We believe it is important to not only react quickly and provide assistance in the event of an emergency, but to also take steps to identify, assess and reduce the risks the poor face from future disasters.

Our DRR activities aim to decrease the risk to communities, their livelihoods, lives and property, and are
conducted at local, countrywide and regional levels. These include community, non-governmental organisational and countrywide drills for preparedness and adaption practices to prepare and reduce vulnerability.

Caritas Australia’s response

• 200 people were trained in “Community Managed Disaster Risk Reduction” concepts in Malawi.
• Disaster Risk Reduction training was conducted for Caritas Australia’s partners in the Philippines.
• Caritas Australia and Caritas Internationalis met jointly to discuss our ongoing response to Cyclone Nargus in Burma, including the remaining challenges, lessons learnt and recommendations for improved response and future collaboration.

Real life: helping in Samoa

In September 2009, a massive 8.1 magnitude earthquake triggered a tsunami that wiped out homes, schools and infrastructure across Samoa's coastal communities.

As the weather is increasingly unpredictable, the main activity is educating Samoans on the impacts of natural disasters which are occurring more frequently.  

"We have flooding or we have water scarcity as a result of intensive drought, and it impacts on the crops. We now have to look at diversifying our crops and look at other types of farming, like organic farming, to increase the resilience of our agricultural products," said Lesina Levy from Caritas Samoa.