EU approach to resilience and disaster risk reduction in developing countries: learning from food security crises

2013/2110(INI)

The Development Committee adopted the own-initiative report by Gay MITCHELL (PPE, IE) on the EU approach to resilience and disaster risk reduction in developing countries: "learning from food security crises", in response to the Commission communication on the same topic.

The Committee noted that, according to the UN, since 1992 4.4 billion people have been affected by disasters, USD 2 trillion worth of damage has been caused and 1.3 million people have been killed. In 2011, the cost of disaster loss was over USD 300 billion.

The UN further predicts that the world’s urban population will increase by 72% by 2050, and that most urban growth will occur in less developed countries, thereby greatly increasing the number of people exposed to disaster risk.

In this context, the Committee welcomes both the Commission's 2012 Resilience Communication and its objectives, as well as the document entitled "Action Plan for Resilience in Crisis-Prone Countries 2013-2020" and its priorities. They call on the Commission together with the European External Action Service (EEAS), to implement its proposals and priorities and to ensure that consistent progress is made on achieving its objectives

EU approach to resilience: the Committee calls on the Commission to actively integrate resilience measures into both the humanitarian and the development sides of programming. It stresses that there needs to be a stronger link between short-term humanitarian responses and longer-term development programming and that this should fit into the overall resilience approach.

For the Committee, the main focus of the EU’s resilience approach must be the most vulnerable, poorest and most marginalised populations, who have high exposure to risks.  In the long term, this approach should address the deterioration of the ecosystem, particularly agriculture, water, biodiversity and fish resources.

The Committee calls on the Commission to target fragile countries in its resilience agenda.

Disaster risk reduction (DRR) as an essential component of resilience: the Committee highlights that effective disaster response management takes into account the setting in place of a framework allowing for the immediate mobilisation of all necessary resources within the development and aid programmes. It calls on the EU, its Member States and its partner countries’ governments to improve and develop DRR strategies in developing countries by implementing risk assessment programmes and enhancing early warning systems, particularly in fragile and crisis-prone countries.

The EU and its Member States, as well as partner countries should consider:

·        environmental sustainability and disaster risk management in programmes of land governance reform;

·        climate change.

Coherence and complementarity between the Millenium Development Goals (MDG) and DRR should be ensured for the post-2015 framework;

Sustainable development, social protection and community resilience: the Committee encourages increased attention to small-scale disasters as a key target in the resilience approach and enhanced visibility for the damage that small-scale disasters do. It underlines the need to strengthen and develop education in the context of disasters and emergencies, in relying on local authorities and civil society organisations.

They also call for the regular collection of data, inter alia, meteorological data and data relating to harvest, livestock, the functioning of the markets, the nutritional condition of children and the poorest members of society, as well as data on existing DRR mechanisms …, in order to facilitate access to early warning measures.

Learning from food security crises and previous disasters: the Committee calls on the EU to draw lessons from its cooperation policy in the past decades and to put forward proposals to promote Policy Coherence for Development in practice. It notes that food and nutrition crises are becoming more frequent in the Sahel and Horn of Africa regions, where millions of people are without access to adequate food. It stresses that the underlying causes leading to food crises today are more complex than in the past, with poor people becoming more exposed to prices shocks.

The Committee notes that chronic food and nutrition insecurity is the first and most important factor of vulnerability to food crises, because it reduces people’s capacity to prepare for risks, to withstand crises and to bounce back after them. The question of food security should be treated a resilience priority by eliminating unsustainable practices such as the dumping of agricultural products and unfair trade rules. The Committee notes that evidence from Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali indicates that low-cost agro-ecological techniques, particularly agro-forestry and soil and water conservation, have improved small-scale farmers’ resilience to food insecurity. It calls for non-agricultural components to be incorporated into agricultural interventions and for it to be ensured that improved nutrition is an explicit objective of agricultural programmes

Better coordination of efforts and improved funding methods: the Committee points out that according to a study, EUR 800 million could be saved annually in transaction costs if donors concentrated their aid efforts on fewer countries and activities. In this respect, it underlines the importance of nomadic livestock keepers and pastoral populations for improving nutritional processes.

At the same time, the Committee encourages increased collaboration between the public sector and the private sector on DRR and resilience. It urges the Commission to draft a proposal that establishes rules on public-private partnership, including social and ecological impact assessments, to prevent, for example, the exacerbation of land-use conflicts or conflicts over access to water, particularly to protect smallholder famers. It also recommends increased collaboration with non-EU countries and international and regional institutions when it comes to disaster preparedness, as well as disaster response and reconstruction.

Finally, the Committee emphasises that while the EU and international organisations can make progress on DRR and resilience in developing countries through their programmes, it is primarily the responsibility of national governments to ensure the safety of their citizens.

Partner countries therefore need to have a strong political commitment to supporting and implementing activities that enhance resilience and DRR