Views from the Frontline Online Report: Exclusion of At-risk Communities a Major Barrier to Preventing Disaster Losses

For decades governments, international institutions, civil society organisations, and people living in at-risk communities have tried to prevent disasters. Global and national policies have come and gone. Yet time and again lives are still devastated by floods, droughts, diseases, food shortages, poverty, conflict and pandemics. In 2019, nearly 200 civil society organisations, from more than 40 countries, set out to find out why – by asking those people directly at risk.

Led by GNDR members, Views from the Frontline 2019 has surveyed nearly 100,000 people on the ground in 598 communities so far. We’ve spoken to members of the public, local governments, civil society organisations and communities most at risk.

This is the largest independent global review of disaster risk conducted entirely at the local level.

Participants were asked about the threats they face (like floods, earthquakes, landslides, unemployment, epidemics, to name a few); what action can be taken to prevent disasters; and what the barriers to those actions are.

In analysing the results of the survey, we have drawn out nine key conclusions. These represent the major reasons why people are still losing their lives and livelihoods to disasters – as reported by the people who live in the places that are most at risk