Disaster risk financing, G20, and the insurance

The DRRWG should play a significant role in directing capital flow towards investments that make societies and economies more disaster resilient.

- ARUN AGARWAL

Indian topography is vulnerable to natural hazards: earthquakes, floods, river erosion, cyclones, droughts, and landslides etc.There is a 2/3rd chance now that the 1.5 degree celsius danger mark (above our pre-indusrial average for 1850-1900) for our planet’s warm-up will be hit within half a decade. It’s the point after which we can expect the ecological ill-effects of all this extra heat to proliferate rapidly.

India has rightly been following the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030), which recognises that the state has the primary role to reduce disaster risk but that responsibility should be shared with other stakeholders, including the private sector. This Framework advocates for the substantial reduction of disaster risks and losses. It is the successor instrument to the Hyogo Framework for Action (2005-2015) for building the resilience of nations and communities to disasters, which led to the passage of National Disaster Management Act in December 2005, and later the creation of National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) and State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF). India has now initiated a new worksream in G20 highlighting the importance of disaster risk reduction.