Netherlands ‘Partners for Resilience’ present new vision

The five Netherlands Partners for Resilience agencies last week launched a new presentation of their vision for risk reduction at a consultative-group meeting in The Hague of the Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction (GFDRR).

CARE Netherlands, Cordaid, the Netherlands Red Cross, the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, Wetlands International – the PfR group – and civil-society partners in the global South are integrating DRR, climate change adaptation and ecosystem management and restoration in nine countries.

“Disaster risk is rising rapidly and the poorest and most vulnerable people are hit hardest,” according to the new PfR vision statement. “Many hazards are becoming more frequent and less predictable as a result of climate change.

“At the same time, environmental degradation erodes nature’s ability to regulate them, and to provide food and water. The result is that more people are caught in a vicious circle of poverty, risk and vulnerability, which drives mounting economic losses, and imposes ever greater costs of relief and rehabilitation on governments and agencies.”

PfR work puts communities centremost by empowering them to strengthen livelihoods, connects disciplines by using the combined strength of organizations working in partnership, and connects humanitarian and development focuses.

The PfR programme, the first large-scale project of its kind, has recognized the urgent need to change course urgently and now works in nine developing countries: Ethiopia (pictured), Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mali, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Uganda,

A young Ethiopian in Dire Dawa, a key PfR focus, uses a weighted stick to sow tree-saplings. (Photo: Raimond Duijsens/NLRC)