PM calls for integrated response to disasters
The Prime Minister was addressing the 5th International Conference on Disaster Resilient Infrastructure
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday called for integrated preparations for dealing with natural disasters, underlining that the response should not be isolated as natural calamities in one part of the world affect others too.
Speaking at the 5th edition of the International Conference on Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, the PM said that in a closely connected world, the impact of a disaster is not just local.
“Disaster in one region can have a big impact on a completely different region. Therefore, our response has to be integrated, not isolated,” Modi said at the conference held under the auspices of the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI).
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Modi launched CDRI, a global partnership of governments, the UN, multilateral development banks, the private sector, academics, etc, during the UN Climate Action Summit in New York in September 2019.
Modi said over 40 countries have become part of CDRI and that many more are coming together. He said this confirms that the CDRI, which seeks to promote infrastructure resilient to climate and disaster risks, has become an important platform.
Modi said infrastructure is not only about returns but also about reach and resilience. “Infrastructure must leave no one behind and serve people even during times of crisis. Further, a holistic view of infrastructure is needed. Social and digital infrastructure is as important as transport infrastructure…Resilience is about how quickly systems can ensure a return to normal life. Resilience is built in the time between one disaster and another.”
Modi said each nation faces the threat of natural disasters and asserted that learning lessons from the past was the way forward. “This is where CDRI and this conference play a key role. Each nation and region faces a disaster of a different kind.”
At a separate event last month, Modi spoke about how houses built in Gujarat’s Kutch called Bhunga survived the 2001 earthquake to a large extent. “...Enriching local technology and material with new technology is the need of the hour. When we link the examples of local resilience with future technology, we will be able to do better in the direction of disaster resilience,” he said at the event on March 10.
Modi underlined the need for using advanced technology for disaster risk reduction and strengthening urban local bodies primarily working as response forces.
At the conference on Tuesday, PK Mishra, principal secretary to the PM, said disaster resilience is now at the forefront of the national and international development discourse. He said the country will be able to develop pathways for resilient infrastructure for future generations only by focusing on “modernising institutions, maintaining optionality, creating multi-disciplinary capacities among other such initiatives.”
“Disaster resilience is no longer a niche subject. It has come to the centre stage of the global and national development discourse,” Mishra said during his address.
Stressing the need to shed institutional approaches of the 20th century to solve problems of the 21st century, he cited the PM GatiShakti Masterplan as an example of a holistically planned project. Launched in October 2021, Gati Shakti is a digital platform that brings 16 ministries, including railways and roadways, together for integrated planning and coordinated implementation of infrastructure connectivity projects. The multi-modal connectivity will provide integrated and seamless connectivity for movement of people, goods and services from one mode of transport to another. “If the future is uncertain, then we cannot lock ourselves into only one way of doing things,” he said.
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Mishra also stressed the need to measure “outcomes in terms of reliable infrastructure services to people”, as opposed to only in terms of creation of hard assets.
He asked participants of the conference to seize the opportunities provided by the global momentum in resilience issues, since the G20 discussed the issue and, in less than two months, the United Nations will convene the high-level political forum to discuss progress on the Sendai Framework, which gives the agency’s member states actions to protect development gains from the risk of disasters.
