Kathmandu | July 22, 2025
Disasters are no longer isolated outcomes of natural hazards but are increasingly shaped by deep-rooted governance failures and social vulnerabilities, warns a new insight from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and npj Natural Hazards journal.
According to the analysis, the rising frequency and intensity of disasters-from climate-related extremes to cascading infrastructure failures-are linked to systemic governance breakdowns. These include institutional fragmentation, technocratic rigidity, corruption, and social exclusion, all of which significantly increase vulnerability and exposure to hazards.
The UNDRR graphic illustrates how governance failures interact with diverse hazard clusters-ranging from geological and meteorological to biological, chemical, and technological-amplifying the risk of compound disasters. Such disasters are not the product of a single hazard but of multiple, interacting risks that cross sectors, regions, and systems.
Key Findings:
Social vulnerabilities, such as marginalization and lack of justice, turn natural hazards into human catastrophes.
Governance breakdowns can transform manageable risks into cascading disasters, affecting agriculture, infrastructure, public health, and economies.
Multiple hazards, including floods, earthquakes, disease outbreaks, and technological failures, increasingly occur together or in succession, compounding damage.
This analysis aligns with real-world trends: climate-driven floods triggering landslides and disease outbreaks; earthquakes exacerbated by poor infrastructure; or conflicts disrupting disaster response systems.
A Call for Systemic Change
Experts stress the need for justice-driven, integrated, and anticipatory governance to manage today’s complex risk landscape. This means:
Strengthening institutional coordination,
Addressing systemic inequalities,
Building resilient infrastructure and early warning systems,
Involving vulnerable communities in planning and response.
As climate change, fragility, and conflict increasingly interact, the path forward lies in governing risk-not just responding to disasters. Nepal and other climate-vulnerable countries must urgently adopt risk-informed development planning to prevent today’s hazards from becoming tomorrow’s tragedies.
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