Crises must be prevented

Translated from the Norwegian

The award of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is recognition of an inconvenient truth: climate change is causing more, and increasingly more serious, natural disasters. And as is so often the case, it is the poor who are hardest hit. 

During the course of 2007, the number of people living in cities will for the first time in human history exceed those living in rural areas. Increasing urbanisation is changing the nature of humanitarian crises. They are becoming more complex, regardless of whether they are natural or man-made. People in developing countries are most at risk. And to an increasing extent, crises are recurring in countries that are unable to protect their own populations. 

We now realise that it is not enough to send assistance once a humanitarian crisis has arisen. Emergency relief will of course continue to play a role, and our experience enables us to make effective contributions, particularly through the many Norwegian NGOs that specialise in this area. However, the international community needs to become better at disaster risk reduction. Changing conditions are forcing us to find new approaches – both at home and abroad. Climate change, human migration and humanitarian crises are forcing foreign and development policymakers to take new approaches. This is the line of thought running through the white paper on the prevention of humanitarian crises that the Government submitted to the Storting on Friday 7 December 2007. 

In this white paper, we emphasise that we need to improve the coordination between our short-term humanitarian efforts and our long-term development cooperation. We need to establish long-term cooperation with the UN, the international financial institutions and the authorities in countries affected by disasters. We need to support the exchange of knowledge and experience between countries in the South. And we need to focus our risk reduction efforts on the places where there is a high probability of disasters occurring.  

The Government wants to erase the sharp divide between short- and long-term assistance: between humanitarian aid and long-term development cooperation. This traditional division is based on the idea that phases of assistance need to follow a specific chronological order: risk reduction, emergency relief, and then a transition to long-term development cooperation. However, developments rarely follow a straight path, and this model will not be useful if we are taking a more strategic approach to humanitarian crises. Our efforts, which at present are divided on the basis of Ministry organisation and current budget structures, need to be harmonised.  

Our main aims must be to boost local disaster-management capacity, reduce vulnerability where the risk is greatest, and ensure that those most at risk are also those best equipped to respond to disasters. Local groups must be put in a position to provide vital initial assistance. Those who are most familiar with day-to-day life in the local community are best placed to help in a crisis. This applies as much to Norwegian mountain rescue volunteers as to local volunteers along the coast of Bangladesh. 

We know that crises far away also affect us. We also see that complex crises increasingly hit countries that are in conflict; these are often societies where governance and administrative capacity are weak. Environmental and climate change and increased migration may further weaken fragile states, thus creating fertile ground for new conflicts. Humanitarian disasters and extensive migration can also pose a threat to our own security, and we are pleased that the UN Security Council has put this issue on the agenda.  

It is the most disadvantaged who are hardest hit by disasters of this kind. There are currently around 850 million people suffering from malnutrition worldwide. An increase in global temperatures of just one to two degrees will cause more drought, desertification and extreme weather events. Even small changes in the climate can dramatically increase malnutrition. Chronic food shortages and hunger are huge problems that can only be solved through coordinated preventive measures; they cannot be addressed through crisis response and short-term food aid alone. So how can we improve coordination between the different approaches and create long-term food security? 

The answer, once again, is risk reduction. Due to effective early warning systems and well organised crisis response, there were significantly fewer victims following the hurricane Sidr in Bangladesh in November this year compared with previous years. In October, China evacuated around 1.4 million people in its south-eastern regions in connection with the typhoon Krosa, which caused flooding and widespread material damage. There were no reported fatalities. The tsunami warnings in South Asia in September demonstrated that the early warning systems work, and that local populations in coastal areas know what to do in the event of an undersea earthquake. We are also seeing the results of long-term peace and reconciliation efforts, and of efforts to eradicate weapons like landmines and cluster munitions that have unacceptable humanitarian consequences.

We now have the experience, resources and technology to make a difference. We are better able to predict where natural disasters will occur, thanks to ever more accurate risk and vulnerability analyses. We have considerable insight into political developments in fragile states. Norway will promote much greater use of this knowledge within the UN system and among the countries we cooperate with. 

Risk reduction, preparedness and reconstruction are first and foremost the responsibility of national authorities, but international organisations and donor countries like Norway can also play an important role by providing expertise and financial support. The Government is already well under way with this task. The white paper on the prevention of humanitarian crises will be followed up through several initiatives to increase coordination between Norwegian centres of expertise and NGOs, and through Norwegian initiatives under the framework of the UN and vis-à-vis countries that can make a particular contribution to strengthening disaster risk reduction capacity.