Disasters are a result of hazards that intersect with poorly located and feebly constructed infrastructure. The ability of a built environment to hold up the impacts of hazards will determine the type of fatalities suffered and monetary costs of unavoidable disasters . Therefore, it is essential to make the right and timely decisions to minimize vulnerabilities in the environment. The right decisions will improve the environments capacity for disaster mitigation and resilience. This essay seeks to discuss the major initiatives the United Nations has taken to improve disaster resilience, in particular, the Sendai Framework and the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. It is suggested that hazards cannot be controlled, but the attributes of a built environment can help people survive after disasters. Therefore, it is crucial to improve the resilience of the environment to make it less susceptible to the outcomes of disasters. The application of a resilience-based method for emergency management in any country is a shared responsibility of emergency management agencies, communities, businesses, as well as individuals. Resilience-based methods provide states and local governments, businesses and community leaders, and non-profit organizations with a high level of control over disaster management.
The Sendai Framework (SF)
In March 2015, the Third UN World Conference was held in Japan and adopted a framework for disaster management entitled the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. It strives to ensure that the UN states as well as other participants under the Hyogo Framework for Action continue putting efforts to improve disaster resilience . The SF emphasizes disaster risk management, minimizing disaster risks, strengthening resilience, and focusing on man-made and natural disasters, as well as biological, technological, and environmental risks . The framework also articulates the need for enhanced knowledge of disaster risks in their various dimensions of exposure, susceptibility, and hazard characteristics. It also strives to strengthen disaster risk management on the national platforms. Better governance will lead to responsibility for disaster risk management and better preparedness of the SF stakeholders to building back affected communities.
Preceding the SF, the HFA was a 10-year framework set to run from 2005 to 2015. Its main objective was to achieve a significant reduction of the loss of lives, as well as social, economic, and environmental assets of communities. 168 countries that had endorsed the framework managed to strengthen international cooperation. They also made political progress needed to ensure that the disaster risk reduction framework could be used as a basis for national and international development programs.
The adoption of the HFA raised disaster resilience to the international, regional, and national level, which led to noticeable progress in disaster risk reduction. The framework mid-term review showed that the accomplishments resulting from the HFA implementation were uneven across 168 countries. Great institutional and economic differences among countries were responsible for different levels of resilience improvement . Moreover, devastating earthquakes in Haiti and New Zealand in 2010, as well as floods in Australia and Pakistan in 2010, proved that the HFA had not done enough to reduce the impact of such disasters. The consequences were dire and only proved that the HFA had a long way to go. However, statistics indicated that there was progress in various areas of risk reduction, such as creating early warning systems and passing key national legislations .
The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction
The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction is a UN organizational unit founded in 1999 as a UN Secretariat. Its main objective is to control the execution of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction . UNISDRs mandate is to act as a unit of the UN system tasked with organizing disaster reduction and ensuring cooperation among disaster reduction agencies . In other words, it strives to meet the necessities of affected communities and control mitigation and reestablishment activities in an effective and sustainable manner.
One of UNISDRs successful campaigns is Making Cities Resilient, which tackles the problems of urban risks and local governance. It also uses the frameworks previous successful operations of making schools and hospitals safer and utilizes sustainable urbanization ideologies established in the 2009 UN-Habitat World Urban Campaign . The UNISDR advocates for national and local governments, civil society organizations, private sector, professional associations, academies, communities, and individuals to engage actively in improving disaster resilience and managing risks . The UNISDR has furthered the United States, among other regions, such as ASEAN member states, Europe, and the Arab States. These regions have had a considerable escalation in investments by various relevant bodies involved in disaster risk reduction and improvement in disaster resilience.
Personal Opinion
The major obstacles to disaster management programs are poor governance and management, untimely planning, lack of proper cohesion among communities and states, and inadequate resources. In the long run, improving governance, management, planning, and capacity building will make the framework effective for improving disaster resilience in the United States and world communities. Improvements will also offer the local communities better access to expert knowledge provided businesses and the local government. It will help people minimize their vulnerability to natural disasters and build an environment that can withstand any threat posed by unavoidable natural hazards.
Conclusion
History has proven that some hazards are unavoidable. However, people have the capacity to build environments that can endure these threats. The UN has launched numerous frameworks that help in emergency management. The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction and the Sendai Framework are great examples of campaigns launched for the purpose of improving disaster resilience. Although some of the frameworks have had a few hitches, they have proven that improvements in various sectors on the macro and micro levels will lead to a safer environment that can withstand hazards.
About author
Linda works as an editor at https://essaysservice.com/multiple-choice-tests-samples.html. She has always enjoyed working with a variety of literature and being interested in new facts. In addition, she easily finds common ground with many people. She also received her master's degree from American University Washington
