Press Release: President Clinton Urges Risk Reduction to Become a Global Priority
President Bill Clinton addressed an audience of government officials, international organizations, and scientists at the International Early Warning Conference today in Bonn on the importance of taking pre-emptive measures to mitigate the impacts of natural hazards.
“Hazards are not disasters by definition,” President Clinton said in his capacity as UN Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery. “Hazards only become disasters when lives and livelihoods are swept away. Making communities safer—by better managing the risks of natural hazards—must become a global priority,” he added.
The former President reviewed the recent history of increasing numbers of social and economic losses due to natural disasters and pointed to the role of population growth, urbanization, the expansion of settlement in hazard-prone areas, environmental degradation and climate change as all contributing to increasing vulnerability.
In order to prevent hazards from becoming disasters, President Clinton urged the implementation of well-known but under-applied measures to reduce risk. For example encouraging the practice of ‘hazard mapping’ to identify areas of extreme vulnerability, better enforcement of uniform building codes to prompt safer construction, the expansion of access to insurance to help survivors recover and education to increase awareness.
On the island of Simeulue on the coast of Indonesia, for example, community lore about the behavior of the sea before a tsunami saved the lives of nearly all 80,000 inhabitants; only seven people were killed by the December 2004 tsunami. Modern early warning systems could save many more lives.
On the subject of early warning systems, President Clinton was clear. “We know that early warning systems are the keystone to an effective risk reduction strategy. Early warning systems can save lives and livelihoods,” he said. While recognizing the tremendous contribution of scientifically advanced monitoring systems, President Clinton noted that highly sophisticated technology is meaningless if the signal does not reach a community already informed on how to protect itself once the sirens are heard.
He urged donors to carefully review the compendium of early warning projects solicited for the Bonn conference. The former President also reminded the audience of the modest $200 million price tag of the early warning projects under consideration in Germany, amounting to a fraction of the $10 billion in annual outlays for humanitarian assistance.
In closing, President Clinton updated the audience on the tsunami rebuilding effort, noting that nearly 100,000 houses and 400 schools have been rebuilt or are under construction. He also reported that significant progress had been made towards the development of an Indian Ocean Tsunami Early Warning System over the last 15 months.
President Clinton urged the participants to move faster to transform agreements into action. “Disaster reduction is above all about doing things differently and making the right choices,” he said. “The right choices range from where to build a school to investing a modest amount to ensure that buildings are better protected. The decision to invest today will have longer-term returns. Nothing could be more important for those living in disaster prone areas,” the former President added.
For background information:
Between 1990 and 1999, the number of people affected by natural disasters doubled. In 2005 alone, a total of 149 disasters killed 97,000 people, affected over 133 million people, and caused economic losses of $220 billion. The 2004 tsunami killed more than 220,000 people, and caused $10 billion worth of damages. It has been estimated that public resources spent on relief and recovery constitute 96 percent of all funds spent on disaster-related activities while only four percent are spent on prevention; every dollar invested in prevention saves three dollars in recovery and relief costs.
The Early Warning Conference is hosted by the German government in coordination with the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. It is the third conference of its kind, following the International Conference on Early Warning Systems for Reduction of Natural Disasters in 1998 held in Potsdam, Germany and the Second Conference on Early Warning that took place in 2003 in Bonn.
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