Resilience Building Studies » Natural Disasters and Disaster Risk Management

All throughout history, natural or human-caused disasters have been among the greatest challenges against development of human societies. Floods, storms, epidemics, earthquakes, droughts, wild fires, and many more interrupt and distort the lives of many around the world, and threaten societies’ socio-economic and political development.

Similarly, millions of people are affected in OIC countries and thousands of them killed due to these disasters over the past decades. Much of the impacts could be avoided if adequate actions are taken to reduce vulnerabilities of the communities. There is strong evidence that the critical drivers of vulnerabilities include rapid and inappropriate urban development, socioeconomic inequalities, trends and failures in governance, and environmental sustainability. In most of these indicators, OIC countries present a rather worrying picture, indicating that they are challenged by increased fragility and lack of capacities to prevent natural hazards turning into disasters.

Based on the above understanding, SESRIC conducts research to improve the understandings on the drivers and impacts of natural and human-made disasters and provide policy recommendation in order to eliminate the drivers and impacts. SESRIC presents its research finding in this domain in reports submitted to different OIC fora as well as regional and international conference.