Disasters beyond borders: Asia-Pacific resilience critical for sustainable development

Meeting this week in Bangkok, Asia Pacific senior policymakers have reflected on how to address these gaps and develop new regional strategies - especially to address transboundary floods and landslides. They have also resolved to work more closely on the 'often forgotten' aspects of disasters, such as drought, last-mile early warning systems, and getting the right information to the right people at the right time.

Efforts to strengthen resilience are only effective when they are integrated into wider strategies for sustainable development, and adopted as cross-cutting priorities for governments and the private sector. Every part of an economy suffers from the impacts of disaster, so each sector needs to consider how best to make its activities more disaster resilient.

Greater political commitment to disaster risk reduction, through global agreements and regional deliberations, has however not yet been matched by corresponding action and financing. Many countries still follow a fragmented and crisis management approach to addressing disasters - with a focus on response and less attention paid to adaptation, prevention, mitigation and preparedness. International assistance is also skewed towards emergency relief and rehabilitation.

In Asia and the Pacific, we can no longer afford this approach. Reducing disaster risk requires concerted local and national action, combined with effective regional coordination and cooperation. Existing disaster risks are being exacerbated, and new risks being created by our region's rapid economic growth, rising populations, burgeoning cities, and the damage these trends inflict on the environment. Climate change has added further layers of risk and uncertainty.

Our most urgent shared task is to translate the global and regional commitments on disaster risk reduction into action across Asia and the Pacific - anchoring disaster risk reduction at the heart of our sustainable development implementation.

The author is an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). She is also the UN's Sherpa for the G20 and previously served as Governor of the Central Bank of Pakistan and Vice President of the MENA Region of the World Bank.