Understanding the root causes of natural disasters
Every year disasters take lives, cause significant damage, inhibit development and contribute to conflict and forced migration. Unfortunately, the trend is an upward one. In May 2017, policy-makers and disaster management experts from over 180 countries gathered in Cancun, Mexico, to discuss ways to counter this trend. In the middle of the Cancun summit, news arrived that large parts of Sri Lanka were devastated by floods and landslides, killing at least 150 and displacing almost half a million people. It was a stark reminder of the summit participants’ challenging task of paving the way towards reducing disaster losses “significantly” by the year 2030 based on the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). Adopted in 2015, the Sendai Framework outlines seven targets and four priorities for action to prevent new,…