UNDP Regional Director calls for stronger regional cooperation after Sri Lanka floods

UN Assistant Secretary-General and Director of the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Kanni Wignaraja says Sri Lanka, like many other countries, needs to strengthen its infrastructure and preparedness to cope with increasingly severe disasters.

Speaking to NHK from Sri Lanka, she said the flooding in the island nation is on a scale she has never seen before.

Wignaraja calls the destruction devastating, with heavy loss of life and widespread damage to infrastructure. She says insufficient preparedness contributed to the severity of the disaster.

She said flood management systems and infrastructure “should be done with materials and with design and technology that can withstand much harsher climate action.”

Sri Lanka, like many other countries, needs to strengthen its infrastructure and preparedness to cope with increasingly severe disasters. But she pointed out that official development assistance has been shrinking in recent years, as some donor governments have cut foreign aid.

Wignaraja stressed that stronger regional cooperation is essential to reducing inequalities and strengthening public goods locally and globally.

--With Inputs from NHK