Do We Need More Tragedies to Take Disaster Risk Reduction Seriously in Conflict Settings?
PhD Fellow, UNU-CRIS & Ghent University
15 May 2025 | #25.04 | The views expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and may not reflect those of UNU-CRIS.
More than a year ago, over 4,200 people died and more than 40,000 were displaced in Libya after Storm Daniel ripped through the east of the country. Entire neighborhoods were washed away. The scale of the disaster shocked many, but it shouldn’t have. As I wrote then: we could have prevented some of these losses.
Today, the same warning signs are flashing too late in Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). And once again, we have failed to act in time.
In Myanmar, a deadly 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck on March 28th, collapsing already weakened infrastructure and cutting off communities that have been struggling from years of civil conflict. Humanitarian access has been restricted not by the tremors, but by airstrikes and military roadblocks, many of which occurred after a ceasefire was declared for earthquake relief.
Meanwhile, in the DRC, the population is reeling from catastrophic floods that began on April 4th. Towns have been submerged and thousands are displaced. The response has been chaotic at best, paralyzed by active conflict, widespread displacement, and the near-total absence of functioning public services.
These crises are just the latest evidence of an alarming pattern. It’s the same one we documented in our study published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. Using data from 157 countries between 1989 and 2018, we found that conflict-affected countries face more frequent disasters and suffer more deaths from them. On average, a country with armed conflict sees 5% more disasters and a staggering 34% more disaster-related fatalities.
Why? Because armed conflicts not only kill, but they also erode the systems meant to protect people from other threats.
As we show in our paper, we find there are at least seven key mechanisms through which armed conflict increases vulnerability to natural hazards:
- Institutional breakdown: Armed conflict weakens or destroys institutions responsible for disaster risk reduction.
- Destruction of infrastructure: Damage to critical infrastructure exposes people more to hazards and hampers emergency response.
- Economic collapse: Armed conflict damages local and national economies, undermining the ability of communities to develop resilient livelihoods.
- Shortened time horizons: People living in insecurity often abandon long-term planning, leading to riskier, short-term survival strategies.
- Forced displacement: Displaced populations are typically more exposed to environmental threats and less able to cope.
- Environmental degradation: Armed conflict can degrade ecosystems and increase the intensity and frequency of hazards.
- Disrupted aid and response: Conflict settings are harder to reach, with limited humanitarian access, delayed responses, and misallocated resources.
While this list is not exhaustive and more mechanisms may exist, the trend is unmistakable: conflict creates conditions where disasters hit harder, and recovery is slower.Libya was a textbook example. Political fragmentation and years of neglect turned its cities into a trap. Myanmar and the DRC followed a very similar trajectory.
What’s frustrating is that none of this is unpredictable. While we may not know exactly when or where the next hazard will strike, we do know which countries are most vulnerable. We can anticipate which regions are least prepared. We can foresee that a natural hazard in a war-torn society is very likely to become a humanitarian disaster.
We also need to stop calling them “natural” disasters. Earthquakes don’t kill this many people. Floods don’t create mass displacement on their own. Weak governance, broken institutions, and prolonged violence do. It’s not about the hazard; it’s about the context in which it occurs.
This is why disaster risk reduction (DRR) cannot be viewed as a purely technical field. In fragile states, DRR must be deeply political. It must go hand in hand with conflict prevention, peacebuilding, and rebuilding state capacity.
That means investing in resilience before the storm hits, not only after. It means enabling humanitarian access during conflict, not waiting for ceasefires that may never hold. And it means recognizing that protecting lives from disasters often requires confronting the violence that puts those lives at risk in the first place.
The floods in Libya, the earthquake in Myanmar, and the floods in DRC are not just tragic events. They are predictable outcomes of systemic neglect, political failure, and the consequences of war. We can prevent the next one, but only if we choose to act.