INDIA GREENS PARTY
Press Statement
Int’l Day for Disaster Risk Reduction: Empowered institutions needed to work on scientific evidence, says IGP
Unchir, Pauri-Garhwal, Uttarakhand, 13 October 2020: The India Greens Party (IGP) today said that COVID-19 and the climate emergency have explicitly warned us that we needed clear vision to implement pragmatic plans through empowered institutions acting on scientific evidence.
In a press statement issued here today on the occasion of the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, the IGP President Suresh Nautiyal said the capacities need to be strengthened at the local level urgently to make the disaster risk reduction people-focussed and action-oriented because disasters hit hardest at the local level.
Held every 13 October, the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction was started in 1989, after a call by the United Nations General Assembly for a day to promote a global culture of risk-awareness and disaster reduction.
The day celebrates how people and communities around the world are reducing their exposure to disasters and raising awareness about the importance of reining in the risks that they face.
In 2015 at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan, the international community was reminded that disasters hit hardest at the local level with the potential to cause loss of life and great social and economic upheaval.
This year’s International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction is all about governance.
“For good disaster risk governance, we need clear vision, plans and competent, empowered institutions acting on scientific evidence for the public good,” Mr Nautiyal pointed out, adding that the national and local strategies for disaster risk reduction were required to be in place as soon as possible.
Sudden disasters displace millions of people every year throughout the world and many of them are exacerbated by climate change, thus have a negative impact on sustainable development.
“We need to see strategies that address not just single hazards like floods and storms, but those that respond to systemic risk generated by zoonotic diseases, climate shocks and environmental breakdown,” he stated, adding that these national and local strategies for disaster risk reduction essentially have to be multi-sectoral, linking policies in areas such as land use, building codes, public health, education, agriculture, environmental protection, energy, water resources, poverty reduction and climate change adaptation.
Mr Nautiyal said State has the primary responsibility to reduce disaster risk but the role should be shared with other stakeholders like local elected bodies, the private sector and the people in general.
-Press Statement issued by the IGP Spokesperson (North) Rafat Jamal.
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(India Greens Party is registered with the Election Commission of India under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. Registration Number: 56/476/2018-19/PPS-I, effective from 18/07/2019.)
Party HQ: 104, Vardhman Complex, 1st Floor, LSC, Savita Vihar, Delhi-110092.
Email: indiagreensparty@gmail.com Website: www.indiagreensparty.org
