"Change is a slow process. If we try to accelerate it beyond a point, it will not be sustainable." - G. Padmanabhan, UNDP, India
The 10th anniversary of
2004 Tsunami gives us the opportunity to reflect upon what has changed (or not)
in the last 10 years, whether there are improvements in the right direction and
at an acceptable pace. It also allows us to collectively discuss what could be done
in the next 10 years.
I would like to highlight a few challenges that we should aim to
overcome:
- While we have made substantial progress on the forecasting capacities, our ability to reach out to the last mile remains at the pre-Tsunami stage. There were some dramatic improvements shown during the recovery work, but most of the systems developed have not been maintained.
- Though school safety initiatives began before Tsunami, the coastal states have not initiated any major efforts to systematically ensure safety of schools. The National School Safety Programme itself skipped the tsunami affected states as its focus was only on earthquakes.
- There have been definite policy changes related to disaster management at the national and state levels. But these have not really translated into appropriate institutional structures to undertake DRR activities envisaged in the DM Act and Policy. The enforcement capacities are abysmally weak.
- Disaster preparedness at the community level has made some improvements. If we do not encounter regular cyclone and flood threats, the capacities developed may slowly disappear. Most of the DM practitioners now accept that the weather patterns and trends are changing, with extreme events striking at times when they are least expected. This poses a major challenge, and uncertainties associated with climatic changes/variability it makes it even critical.
- All the tsunami-affected states and many hazard-prone states are not tackling the challenges systematically in spite of having enough policy articulations and Government Orders to promote DRR.
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