Rising disaster costs prompt Sri Lanka to combine risk reduction in planning

Sri Lanka’s government has begun incorporating disaster risk reduction measures into all development programs to reduce risks from floods and other events that put lives in danger and disrupt economic activity, an expert said, according to EconomyNext.

The island has been facing disasters more frequently since the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, said Visaka Hidellage, Assistant Country Director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). “The country has began accepting that managing disasters is linked to how land use, road planning, and rivers and water ways are managed, and how the education and health sectors are organised,” she said.