UN does survey on disaster preparedness

The UN, to help with their biennial Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction held in Geneva this week, is surveying people around the world to get views on disaster preparedness from those who live in high risk areas.

So far, more than 36,000 people have responded to text message requests from the UN to participate in the survey. The survey has reaped a worrying statistic. Not only do the majority of respondents think that the UN’s disaster preparedness plans are not working, but 57 percent believe that losses over the last five years have actually increased.

At this week’s conference in Geneva, there will be calls for the 168 participating countries to commit to conducting thorough “disaster risk assessments” and developing plans from them. For more information, see the Guardian’s Poverty Matters blog. 

For more information on InterAction and its members’ work in this area, see our Disaster Risk Reduction page.