Disaster Risk Reduction And Sustainable Development: Going Forward

As seen through various chapters in this volume, disasters can have severe consequences on peoples’ income, wealth, health, and social state. They can have equally damaging effects on various income groups in a society, and for the most part, the adverse impacts can persist for a much longer time. As discussed in Chapter 7, national governments in the region have employed various measures to translate their understanding of disasters into respective policy agendas and pursue a sustainable development path aimed at risk reduction. However, available evidences indicate that despite making significant progress in, for example, identifying satisfactory level of DRR focused development programs and policy agendas, most countries in the region still lack severely in terms of translating effectively the DRR agenda into practice due to various issues and challenges that require immediate attention. This concluding chapter briefly weighs in our outlook on the status of existing DRR development agenda in practice, particularly, in view of our understanding of disasters and the issues and challenges involved in operationlizing the agenda, and provides some thoughts and reflections on how best to mobilize our efforts and address the challenges through building on available supportive environments.