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The World Isn’t Spending Enough to Prevent Disasters, UN Says

  • Improving disaster preparedness cuts down economic losses
  • Developing nations lose 1% of GDP a year due to disasters
A man walks with his donkey through a dried canal during a heat wave in Jacobabad on May. 27.

A man walks with his donkey through a dried canal during a heat wave in Jacobabad on May. 27.

Photographer: Asim Hafeez/Bloomberg
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Nations are spending too little to prevent disasters in the face of rising global calamities from the floods in South Africa to a record-breaking heatwave in India.

Of the $133 billion in available disaster-related financing in 2010 to 2019, only 4% went to reducing risks with the rest being spent on more costly post-calamity responses, Mami Mizutori, head of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, said in an interview.