FEATURE-How climate change, urbanisation are changing disaster aid

Thu Jan 26, 2012 11:00am GMT

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* Expert poll shows changing face of humanitarian aid

* Role of climate change and urbanisation to grow

* Investment in risk reduction encouraged

* Aid system urged to operate more like big business

* Experts recommend slashing UN costs and bureaucracy

By Katie Nguyen and Megan Rowling

LONDON, Jan 26 (AlertNet) - Picture this: a terrible drought forces you to abandon your meagre plot of farmland, so you migrate to a city where the jobs are, only to end up living in a slum regularly submerged by floods.

It's a scenario that's going to become more and more familiar in coming years as climate change and rapid urbanisation play an ever-greater role in shaping humanitarian crises, according to an AlertNet poll of the world's biggest aid organisations.

To adapt to the new reality, aid agencies will need to invest more in disaster prevention and learn a trick or two from the private sector about how to make more efficient use of limited resources, the survey of 41 relief organisations shows. Continued...

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