East Africa must prepare to survive

The east Africa crisis throws the importance of disaster risk reduction measures into sharp relief, writes the Guardian. "When it comes to natural disasters, and their very unnatural impact on poor people, prevention is better than cure."

As argued in a new paper by Oxfam's humanitarian policy adviser, Debbie Hillier, we know far more than we used to about how to do this preventive work (known in development jargon as disaster risk reduction, or DRR) and how much more cost effective it is than reacting after disaster has struck, it continues.