Editorial

Citation

(2005), "Editorial", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 14 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2005.07314aaa.001

Editorial

Some good news.

Its not often I have the opportunity to host some good news as part of the editorial but for this edition there is good news to tell you about.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ (IFRC) recent publication, World Disasters Report 2003, brings to the reader some of the better aspects that have arisen from the catalogue of disasters in 2003.

For example, the total number of fatalities is falling. In the period 1994 to 1998 there was an annual average fatality of 75,000 but during the subsequent period from 1999 to 2003 the annual fatality rate has dropped to 59,000.

Donor countries contributions to official development assistance has risen by 11 per cent in 2002 to $58.3 billion and emergency relief rose to £3.9 billion in 2002 from $3.3 billion in 2001.

The report also highlights the role of local populations in victim recovery in the immediate aftermath of disasters. In the Bam earthquake local Red Crescent volunteers saved nearly 160 people trapped in the rubble using sniffer dogs.

In Andhra Pradesh there has been a terrible rise in the number of local farmers who commit suicide as result of failing crops and the need to supplement the Indian government’s cash crop seeds with expensive fertilisers which forces them into an increasing spiral of debt.

The Deccan Development Society, a local NGO, came up with a simple, but apparently effective, idea of inviting people to collect seeds from the native crops which had been used extensively prior to the introduction of other crops. From this activity, and the local knowledge on the management of these crops, the DDS has created a seed bank that is available to struggling farmers. Supplementing this seed bank are public meetings at which local farmers are informed about sustainable agriculture.

Hence, through donor countries’ cash and aid donations and local expertise we are slowly turning the corner.

What is needed now is for the knowledge and experience of local people and organisations to harnessed and used as benchmarks and information points for similar projects elsewhere.