World Disasters Report highlights going the “Last Mile”

The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (ICRC) today briefed reporters on the current situation of global “disasters” including natural disasters, food insecurity and disease.

The report shows 220,000,000 million people are food insecure, and 213,000,000 are affected by natural disasters worldwide. Ninety percent of the world’s malaria cases are occurring in Sub-Saharan Africa. Eighty percent of the population in Cambodia is living within flood distance of the Mekong River.

The Associate Director of the ICRC on climate change, Maarten van Aalst said ” Seventy-six percent of disasters happened in developing countries with 99% of these overall deaths in developing countries.” He emphasized going the “last mile,” by setting up advanced early warning systems.

The report entitled: “World Disasters Report 2009: Focus on Early Warning, Early Action,” underscores that overwhelming evidence is now predicting a highly changeable climate in the decades ahead. “There will be many disasters ahead, and there will be many surprises,” added van Aalst. The disasters which are triggered by climate change (floods, heatwaves, storms and hurricanes) are expected to potentially threaten more lives and livelihoods than the world has ever witnessed before.

A full copy of the report can be found on the ICRC website: http://www.icrc.org