Coronavirus is our wake-up call. No one could have predicted its disastrous impact. But that is the nature of disasters — most are sudden, unpredictable and leave in their wake unimaginable misery and loss. We have been quite rudely awakened to the essentiality of disaster resilience.
Anything that we do from now on, any buildings, plans and developments as a country, has to be done through a disaster resilience lens.
Any policies developed and implemented should be able to answer the questions: Will they help us get through the next disaster shock with minimal loss? Will they help us bounce back fast enough and set us on our feet to recover quickly? And more importantly, if we are ever to be left with no options but to close our borders, can we sustain ourselves?
At the moment, efforts to reduce exposure and spread of the virus has seen nations restrict the movement of people and goods. Read more…
