Risk Returns

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Challenges in the implementation

of HFA in South Asia

Dr. Sheel Kant Sharma, Secretary General, South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation

ultiple layers of geological, hydrological and biological

hazards, and a complex range of physical, social and

economic vulnerabilities have all combined to make

South Asia one of the most disaster prone regions in the world

today. According to the global database, which has recorded disas-

ters over the last forty years, South Asia, comprising Afghanistan,

Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri

Lanka faced as many as 1,333 disasters that killed 980,000 and

affected 2.4 billion people and damaged assets worth $USD 105

billion. These totals are by far the highest among the recorded

disasters in any region of the world.

The hazards, vulnerabilities and risk of disasters in South Asia

have been further compounded in recent years by the changing

climate. The Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI), released

in October 2010 by Maplecroft, identifies South Asia as “most at

risk from climate change” over the next 30 years, with five countries

from the region – Bangladesh (1), India (2), Nepal (4), Afghanistan

(8) and Pakistan (16) – figuring among the top twenty countries of

the 170 that were surveyed.

In recent years the countries of South Asia, largely through the

efforts of communities, and the national and local governments,

have been able to significantly reduce the deaths and damages

caused by natural disasters. There has been a paradigm shift in

the approach to disaster management, from one of post-disaster

relief and rehabilitation to pre-disaster prevention and prepared-

ness. All the countries of the region are signatories of the Hyogo

Framework for Action, and have developed laws and institutions

and comprehensive disaster management frameworks which include

early warning of disasters, structural and non-structural measures

for mitigation, education, awareness and training and preparedness

measures through contingency planning, mock drills and exercises.

Most of the medium scale and large disasters in South Asia have

regional dimensions. So regional cooperation for sharing early

warning information, knowledge, good practices, capacity-build-

ing, research and joint projects for mitigation can serve to reduce

the impact of disasters in the region. Although an institutional

mechanism for cooperation was created through the South Asian

Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in 1985, it was not

until 2007 that a concrete step was taken in the shape of setting up

a SAARC Disaster Management Centre in New Delhi.

Within a short period of time, the centre has been able to develop

a comprehensive regional framework on disaster management and

as many as ten road maps covering a wide range of areas, such as risk

management of earthquakes, landslides, droughts and urban risks,

development of protocols for sharing early warning of disasters,

knowledge networking, risk mapping through unique

digital vulnerability atlas, training, capacity build-

ing research and documentation, and development of

tools and methodologies for community based disaster

management and mainstreaming disaster risk reduction

in development.

The process of regional cooperation has been pains-

takingly slow, often blocked rather than facilitated by

rules and procedures, hindered by lack of resources and

capacities and reluctance of SAARC to accept assistance

from donors and international organizations.

Despite the problems of poverty, infrastructure and

resources, every South Asian country is on a high

trajectory of economic growth and the region as a

whole has the potential to be an economic powerhouse

in the coming decades. This demographic expansion

and unplanned growth might create new disasters,

particularly in urban areas which are growing at a rate

unparalleled anywhere else. The region is extremely

vulnerable to multiple effects of climate change, which

will surely increase the frequency, and intensity, of

disasters. The emerging scenarios call for enhanced and

diversified regional cooperation for disaster reduction.

Unlike the ASEAN agreement on disaster manage-

ment and emergency response of July 2005, the SAARC

comprehensive framework on disaster management,

and the SAARC road maps on disaster risk reduction,

are not legally binding instruments, although they have

been unanimously adopted by the Member States. This

has since constrained implementation, and enforce-

ment, and there have since been many instances when

countries have not agreed to implement projects that

were agreed on in the framework and road maps.

Realizing the importance of developing a legal frame-

work on disaster management, the heads of participating

nations decided at a 2008 summit in Colombo that a

natural disaster rapid response mechanism should be

developed under the auspices of the SAARC Disaster

Management Centre. Accordingly, the centre developed

a consultative process with the relevant ministries and

organizations, which concluded in the drafting of the

SAARC agreement on rapid response to natural disas-

ters. Although the motion went through the process

at both the official and ministerial level discussions,

it could not be signed during the summit meeting in

Thimphu in April 2010.

2006