During the past four decades, disasters such as earthquakes, volcanic activity, landslides, tropical cyclones, floods, drought, and other hazards have increased significantly and caused major loss of human lives and livelihoods. The escalation of these disasters is increasingly threatening both sustainable development and poverty-reduction initiatives. In recent years the international community has also acknowledged that disasters constrain sustainable development, exacerbate poverty and therefore endanger the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

Disasters may occur suddenly in time (quick onset), or they may develop over a longer period of time (slow onset). Efforts to establish better preparedness for and prevention of disasters have been a priority concern of donor agencies, implementing agencies and affected countries. Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) is a Non-Governmental Organization for emergency relief and sustainable development dedicated to helping the world’s poorest populations. The organization is committed to assist any vulnerable human being, when and where possible, in preparing for, responding to, and recovering from, natural and man-made disasters.

This manual brings together into a coherent framework the insights of disaster preparedness and risk reduction programmes for five major natural disasters in the community.  Important learning and best practices from Islamic Relief’s and other agencies work on how communities can have their capacity built to mitigate the effects of disasters are also highlighted for different disasters. The manual demonstrates that effective disaster mitigation and preparedness, as well as the response to emergencies, must be rooted in communities. If communities are aware of the dangers and the likely effects of disasters, they can begin to prepare for them. The manual stresses that strengthening local capacity through appropriate disaster preparedness and mitigation activities as well as livelihoods is crucial to improving civic resilience to disasters. Equally important are strong partnerships between local community-based organizations, external non-governmental and governmental organizations, public and private sectors and between local and national government.

The manual is divided into seven chapters.

Chapter 1 provides some basic definitions and foundation principles regarding disasters, hazards, risks and causal factors that lead to disasters. Links between disaster risk reduction and Millennium Development Goal has been discussed in this chapter.

Chapter 2 highlights a conceptual framework for components of disaster preparedness, importance of disaster preparedness at different levels as well as a generic description of disaster preparedness activities at different levels.

Chapter 3 to Chapter 7, each deal with an individual disaster (Floods, Earthquake, Drought, Cyclone and Landslides). A brief description of the natures and causes of the disaster, community mobilization through appropriate preparedness and mitigation activities at family, community and national/organization levels, and reference to important learning from the field have been included in each chapter.  At the same time, a formal glossary of terms is also presented at the beginning of each chapter.