Shrinking the financial fallout of natural disasters

TOKYO, 9 December 2013 (IRIN) – Relief will be more easily and quickly available, and the economic fallout much more manageable, if governments project and plan fiscally for potential natural disasters and their human and economic toll well in advance, experts say.

The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) has calculated that since 2000, economies have lost as much as US$2.5 trillion due to natural hazards. In 2011 Thailand lost around 5 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) to floods, and Japan lost some 4 percent of its GDP to the earthquake and tsunami.

The latest major disaster in the region, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, is likely to cause losses of around $12.5 billion, or 5 percent of the 2012 GDP in this lower middle-income country, Margareta Wahlstrom, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, told IRIN. – http://www.irinnews.org/report/99296/shrinking-the-financial-fallout-of-natural-disasters

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About Amantha Perera

Amantha Perera is a writer and a multi-media journalist based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. His work regularly appears in TIME, Reuters/AlertNet (Thomson Reuters Foundation), Inter Press News Service – IPS , and Integrated Regional Information Network – IRIN. He concentrates on coverage on Sri Lanka’s post-conflict situation, humanitarian aid, human rights, climate change and impact on the region and adaptation measures. He has worked extensively in the region and reported from the US, Brazil, India, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia and Nepal. He was an International Visiting Scholar at the Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley, California in 2003/04. He was also part of a team that was awarded the 2012 Prince Albert/United Nations Global Prize for Climate Change reporting awarded to IPS for its coverage of the Rio+20 Conference. He began his journalism at the Sri Lankan weekly The Sunday Leader in 1998. Twitter: @AmanthaP

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