Securing land rights for all is key to building disaster-resilient communities
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From East Asia, South Asia, and Africa to Latin America, disaster events such as hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes are on the rise, destroying homes and claiming lives.
Climate change is making it worse. , causing greater losses.
Let’s take a look at cities.
According to our recently published report called “Investing in Urban Resilience,” by 2030, without investment into making cities more resilient, natural disasters may cost cities worldwide approximately $300 billion each year, and climate change is likely to push more than 70 million people into poverty.
Women, children, the elderly, and those with disabilities are likely to be the most affected.
Facing such devastating impacts, , safeguard lives, and protect properties?
Well, there’s one thing they must do: securing land rights for all. Here’s why:
First,
Because when people are forced out of their homes by a disaster, comprehensive and secure land records offer critical protection of rights to their property and livelihoods.
Second, land and geospatial information plays an important role in all phases of disaster risk management, such as disaster reduction, risk reduction, preparedness and mitigation, and emergency response.
Land and geospatial systems can also facilitate quick recovery by providing data on the impact, the value of losses, and the investment needs for recovery and reconstruction.
With almost 60% of the places that will be urbanized by 2030 yet to be built, there is no better time than now to invest in resilience.
Over the last six years, the World Bank has invested billions of dollars in disaster risk management around the globe, but the world needs trillions more each year to make sure the infrastructure of today can withstand the disaster of the future.
What we need is more investment and stronger action.
Replay a livestreamed discussion on resilient infrastructure with Richard Branson, Christiana Figueres, and other influencers, organized by the Global Facility for Disaster Recovery and Reduction during the World Bank-IMF Annual Meetings in October 2017.
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Maybe land rights are even more important in places where we do not have urban landscape. On the other hand, in these localities it is even harder to eletronically systematize a registry. Do you provide some support for countries who wants to establish such a system?
Dear Vinicius, thank you for your comment! You may be interested in reading this story: http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2017/09/20/in-pakistan-and-beyo... Thank you. ~Andy / Editor
Problem with wb is process to provide suport is too long but DRM needs quick action directly to the community. How best can this be resolved? Is there direct support to local NGOs working in informal settlement?
Thank you for your comment. The World Bank is a financial institution that primarily offers credits and loans to its borrowing member governments. The World Bank is owned by 189 countries of the world including Malawi. Over the past 5 years, the World Bank’s financial support for disaster risk management (DRM) investments, institutional strengthening, and policy have averaged over US$5 billion dollars a year. This includes support channeled through community-based development approaches often supported or led by NGOs. Following disasters, the World Bank often mobilizes specialists and resources days after the disaster event at a government’s request.