Human suffering and economic losses from vulnerability to natural hazards are high. Munich Repec has estimated that 2005 was the most ‘expensive year’ on record with an overall loss of US$210 billion that included disaster-related claims worth over US$94 billion. With these costs rising year-on-year 168 governments have adopted the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) 2005-2015.

The HFA strives to galvanize efforts at international, regional, national and local levels to achieve reduction in disaster losses and fulfilment of the objectives set for the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR). One important part of the Framework is helping governments and businesses to identify opportunities for collaborative actions that can reduce losses from natural hazards. Overall, the private sector in South Asia sees itself positioned to provide value for minimizing vulnerability and safeguarding communities in their auspices.

Conference in New Delhi

The second International Disaster Management Conference 2008 was held in New Delhi and was organized under the aegis of the National Disaster Management Authority India (NDMA). The conference organisers were Responsenet and Aidmatrix Initiative. The first International Conference on Public-Private Partnership for Disaster Management was held in 2007.

Held under the theme “Operationalising Public Private Partnership for Disaster Management: Towards Resilient & Sustainability Goals”, the two-day conference, held in April 2008 received big support from a number of international agencies, multi-national organizations and corporate bodies like USAID-IRG, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC&RCS), United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR), Sphere India, Tata Teleservices, International Association for Emergency Managers (IAEM), Swiss Re, GeoHazards International, Services International, Grant Thornton, Micro Insurance Academy, Motorola, Steria (India) Limited, British Standard Issues (BSI), IFFCO-TOKIO, AMS Acoustics, DURAN Audio and DIGITEXX.

Further, the Conference saw the participation of representatives of various State Governments and Departments like Fire Services, the Health Directorate, Police, Non-Governmental Organizations, academicians, societal actors and stakeholders from all parts of the world.

Why Public Private Partnership?

Disaster management is no longer restricted to the domain of ‘State Responsibilities’. Further, it is moving beyond disaster management per se and the focus is moving to “Risk Reduction”, ensuring that minimum risk; loss or damage is ensued whilst dealing with disasters. Hence, all efforts to deal with issues of disaster, whether natural or man-made and the management of it need to be a concerted effort between the Government (public) and the private sector.

To facilitate the operationalization of public private partnerships, the Conference laid emphasis on four thematic issues:

• Corporate Resilience and Preparedness for Disaster Management

• Business Continuity for Disaster Management

• Risk Transfer through Techno Financial strategies

• Operationalisation of Public Private Partnership for Disaster Management

Important Case Studies

Spread over four sessions, the themes covered many case studies ranging from experiences and practices presently employed by different sectors and organizations like the Mumbai Airport Contingencies Plan for Emergency, the Motorola Mission Critical Solution used by the London Police, Geo Hazards Bechtel model, IBM’s Risk Analysis Framework, Pawan Hans Air Ambulance, Swiss Re in Latin America and others.

Need for Preventive Strategy

In his inaugural address, J K Sinha, Member, NDMA, invited the private sector to evolve strategies for Disaster Management by working with NDMA.   He went on to highlight how the losses on account of various disasters used to run into thousands of crores of rupees. “The private sector provides value for minimizing vulnerability while safeguarding communities in their vicinities.  The collective involvement of the partners of this conference will bring a symbiosis of value to the emergency needs to support the government operations. There is a need to engage in dialogues for continuity of plans”, he concluded.

Maj.Gen. J. K. Bansal, NDMA, speaking at the valedictory session, emphasized the need to, “create a momentum for management of disaster, as the government cannot work in isolation” and invited the participants for a dialogue and evolve partnership opportunities with National Disaster Management Authority of India.

N K Goyal, Chairman of Telecom Equipment Manufacturers Association highlighted the criticality of communications and equipments for disaster preparedness and response. N.M Prusty, Chief of Party USAID-IRG Chaired the session on Corporate Preparedness for Disaster Management and highlighted the criticality for corporate resilience and the need for a well-designed preparedness and continuity plan not only for the command system and work flow but also for the communities as integral stakeholders.

Lourdes Perez, International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies, Regional Delegation for South Asia who highlighted the work in progress on Public Private Partnerships for business continuity and the need for synergy between Public-Private and other stakeholders of society chaired the session on Business Continuity for Disaster Management.  She emphasized the need for more investments within companies for protection of employees, communities and the environment. 

The contingency plans as seen today mostly apply to specific disasters, which may be perennial or sudden disruptions due to man made disasters. Examples are pandemics across borders and travelling worldwide disrupting many functions of business and governments.  Andreas Bollmann of Swiss Re, Singapore highlighted the effects that natural catastrophes have on GDP growth rates. Citing examples of earthquakes bringing negative GDP in the region affected, he highlighted with empirical evidence as to how catastrophic events usually retard economic growth, increase external debt, and raise inflation and impacts real interest rates.  He called for strategies for risk transfer that in turn will determine the post event socio economic conditions.

Scenario in India

With countries like India, where the uninsured touches 93 percent of the population this also impacts the population as victims in times of natural disasters.  The focus therefore has shifted from post disaster financing to pre-disaster initiatives and formulating strategies for financial mitigation by introducing ex ante financing instruments to absorb the losses like insurance, catastrophe bonds, reserve funds or contingent credit instruments. Thus there is an urgent need to design reinsurance programs to reduce economic losses. 

Madhavi Ariyabandu of UN/ISDR who highlighted the Hyogo Framework of Action in which Public Private Partnerships to engage private sector emphasized disaster risk reduction activities.  Providing an insight on global hotspots she highlighted that 25 million kilometres and 3.4 billion people are at relatively high-risk areas across the world. UN/ISDR with a mandate to build disaster resilient communities is working towards reducing human, social, economic and environmental losses due to natural hazards and related technological and environmental disasters.  She further highlighted that the cost-benefit ratio for disaster mitigation as 4:1, as per a study, to reduce costs, limit exposures, maintain operating continuity, protect employees, property, reputations and build a competitive market place position.

Following the conference, participants were invited to continue discussions through a virtual Public Private Partnership in Disaster Risk Reduction Network on Prevention Web. This network consists of mailing list & workspace inviting global professionals, government, private companies etc working in the area of Public Private Partnerships for Disaster risk reduction, to share experiences and challenges for engagement models, challenges, strengthening PPP and innovative ways to nurture ongoing partnerships.  

Emerging Trends

The Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015, Mumbai Declaration November 2005 and the Davos Declaration November 2006 are the frameworks designed for Public-Private Partnerships.

At the level of the international humanitarian bodies, there is increasing shift from Disaster Management to Disaster Prevention and Risk Reduction.

There is a paradigm shift happening from Disaster Management to Disaster Preparedness/Risk Reduction, at the level of the State and private organizations partnerships.

Increasing awareness on Public-Private Participation to deal with issues of Disaster Management.