A $100 million fund launched on Tuesday aims to make people in disaster-prone regions of Asia and Africa better able to cope with natural disasters and crises, so that they can get their lives and economies back on track more quickly and effectively.

 

The Global Resilience Partnership (GRP) set up by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Rockefeller Foundation will focus on South and Southeast Asia, the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, where typhoons, floods, earthquakes and drought destroy lives and jobs and hamper development.

 

Scientists say climate change could bring more frequent and more intense weather-related disasters. If communities become more resilient, disaster recovery and relief efforts will cost less, and people will be able to reduce the disruption to lives and jobs and avoid falling into destitution.

 

The GRP's first project is the Global Resilience Design Challenge, a multi-phase competition to be launched in September at the USAID Frontiers in Development Forum in Washington, D.C.

 

Multi-sector teams and organizations need to submit proposals by November on how to make communities in the three focus regions more resilient to disasters, food insecurity and the effects of climate change. Teams going through to the next round will be announced in January.

 

It is not yet clear how many winners there will be, but USAID and the Rockefeller Foundation say the best teams will receive funding to put their ideas into action.

 

 

 

PHOTO: A woman carries her child as she wades through floodwaters at a flooded village in Gaibandha July 4, 2012. A new fund aims to help disaster-prone regions such as Bangladesh cope with natural disasters so they can get their lives back on track

CREDIT: Andrew Biraj