About the World Disaster Alliance
 

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The World Disaster Alliance (also known as the WDA or the Disaster Alliance) is a private organization focused on leveraging the value and impact of preciously limited world financial, material and human resources used in disaster and humanitarian relief.  We are resolved to taking innovative, intelligent, purposeful actions to realize our mission and our vision. We focus upon the acts of natural and human-impacted (e.g. acts of terrorism, war, environmental accidents) disaster and humanitarian need.

The World Disaster Alliance was established to provide a better solution to the missing pieces of the communication, information, and coordination puzzles that disaster relief agencies face.  

The Alliance employs the power of united support among information and communication organizations, disaster and humanitarian groups, world volunteer resources and the combined efforts of private and public donors to enhance the way the world responds to disasters and humanitarian needs.


Is There A Need For Such An Alliance?
The devastating earthquake and the resultant tsunamis of December 26, 2004 was one of the greatest natural disasters in recorded history. The 9.0 earthquake and the Indian Ocean tsunami caused more than 300,000 deaths in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Somalia and other countries. 

Each year natural and man-made disasters create major problems around  the world.  Tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters have increased in frequency and severity.  The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent has warned of “a dangerous trend toward super disasters.”  The frequency and severity of disasters show no signs of abating.

Natural disasters caused at least 25,000 deaths worldwide in 2001, more than double the previous year.  The economic losses of 2001 have been estimated at $36 billion.  The 2001 figures -- with 14,000 people killed in an earthquake in India in January alone -- compared with 10,000 deaths the previous year and losses of around $30 billion.  Natural disasters killed a reported 665,598 people from 1991-2000 for an average of almost 70,000 people killed each year.  A total of 39,073 people were reported killed by disasters in 2001

Storms and floods dominated the 2001 statistics, contributing more than two thirds to the 700 major disasters. Forest fires in Australia, floods in Brazil and in Turkey, snow chaos in central and southern Europe and a typhoon in Singapore, which was meteorologically seen as impossible have all caused damage and despair. 

The worst event in terms of the number of deaths in 2001 was an earthquake in the densely-populated northwestern Gujarat region of India with 14,000 deaths confirmed and many more feared dead.

The year 2001 brought  80 major earthquakes, burdening economies with around $9-billion losses. The worst weather-related disaster in 2001 was tropical storm Allison, which caused losses of some $6 billion, making it ``the most expensive tropical storm in history.''

The decade of the 1990's have seen more destructive tsunamis (great waves) than any other time period since the turn of the century. Since 1990, tsunamis alone have caused approximately $100 million in damage, over 4,500 deaths, and left more than 145,000 homeless.

News reports are replete with descriptions of destructive storms, earthquakes, terrorism, environmental accidents, wars and rumors of wars.   In addition, terrorist actions have had a great impact upon the citizens of the United States, and indeed upon the whole world.

The world is in growing turmoil from disastrous events and a variety of rapidly escalating humanitarian needs.

Over the last five years the members of the World Disaster Alliance, or The Alliance  have researched the increase of catastrophic disasters throughout the world and the impact that properly directed disaster relief can have.  The Alliance has studied extensively for more than three years the major variables that confront disaster and humanitarian relief efforts.  We’ve looked in great detail at disasters from Hurricane Mitch and the Northridge earthquake, to the floods of Venezuela and Mozambique…and more recently the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. and the devastating earthquake and tsunamis around the Indian ocean. This analysis has lead to the formation of the World Disaster Alliance, a group dedicated to provide solutions to the missing pieces of the communication, information, and coordination puzzles that disaster relief agencies face. 


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