We at the Pakistan Red Crescent Society are taking this to heart as we assist survivors of last year’s monstrous floods in their recovery. Disaster risk reduction (DRR) and disaster preparedness programming is a cross-cutting initiative that binds our projects together. But we cannot do this alone.
It is incumbent on all sectors of society to embrace these life saving initiatives; to make DRR and disaster preparedness part of the law of the land. Our efforts must stem from the needs of the people. At the Red Cross Red Crescent, we are helping flood survivors identify challenges they currently face, and those they could face should there be another disaster.
We are organizing village committees and teaching them how to develop village preparedness plans. We will help these village committees register with the government to ensure they are linked in with early warning systems. The monsoon floods in Pakistan took six weeks to travel the length of the country, yet Sindh province in the south was still the worst affected.