During that period, almost 100 million people have lost their homes, their livelihoods, been displaced or suffered injury or loss because of a wide range of natural hazards during the hottest year on record.
Alongside the rising needs driven by climate change and one of the strongest El Niño events in 50 years, the humanitarian assistance system is under increasing strain from conflicts, which have cost countless lives and driven millions from their homes, triggering the largest forced displacement of people since the end of the second world war.
With the world humanitarian summit coming up in May, the world is also freshly alert to the threat of epidemics, the spread of the Zika virus creating another public health emergency of international concern.
This unprecedented storm of humanitarian need has given rise to much debate about more equitable burden-sharing. But what the Sendai framework reminds us is that we need to be much more focused on reducing the humanitarian burden in the first place.
Disaster risk reduction is a philosophy for our times: it means disaster response reduction. The inaugural world humanitarian summit is recognition that we need to get smarter at how we cooperate to address humanitarian challenges while reaffirming human dignity. An essential part of this is improving how we manage disaster risk.
The adoption of the Sendai framework, at the third UN world conference for disaster risk reduction in Japan, marked the beginning of a momentous year in which agreement was reached on the 2030 development agenda.
Disaster risk management is not only a critical part of eradicating poverty, the first of the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs). It is also a core element of all the goals, including reducing the toll of hunger and malnutrition (through climate-smart farming for example, or ensuring that children do not die at their desks during an earthquake).
The school or hospital that ends up being the most costly is the one that fails in a disaster. Building resilient infrastructure is another key SDG where the link with disaster risk reduction is blindingly clear.
Sustainable development cannot be achieved unless we roll back the tide of economic loss suffered by developing countries that find themselves at the mercy of biological and natural hazards, often driven by climate change.
We have to build on the many successes in recent times when it comes to saving lives, especially in weather-related disasters. Last year, early warnings and effective evacuations resulted in one of the lowest recorded death tolls from storms worldwide. Despite 90 major storms having formed, mainly in the Pacific, for the first time in many years, fewer than 1,000 storm deaths were recorded by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. Deaths from floods were also down on the 10-year average.
Unfortunately, it is less clear what the long-term impact on mortality and health will be from last year’s rise in the number of major droughts globally, up to 32 from 15 a decade ago, and which affected more than 50 million people. And these numbers have only increased in 2016 with food insecurity spreading across Africa in particular.
Progress has to be made in substantially reducing economic losses, particularly in least developed countries where there is entrenched poverty, increased exposure and low capacity to manage weather forecasting and early warning systems.
The world needs to embrace the Sendai framework. More than anything this means a change in emphasis from managing disasters to managing the risks that are driving those disasters.
We need more local and national disaster risk management plans in place to avoid the creation of new risk by promoting compliance with building codes, proper land use, environmental protection and poverty reduction.
The world humanitarian summit in Istanbul on 23 and 24 May will bring together leaders to generate concrete commitments to making these changes a reality. There is no time to lose. We must put Sendai and disaster risk reduction at the centre of the debate.
- Robert Glasser is head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and Stephen O’Brien is undersecretary-general, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs