Country: Morocco
Committee: UNDP
Topic: Disaster Risk Reduction
Delegate: Marie Schafer
School: Williamston High School
Natural disasters cause massive harm to both the environment, as well as those living where the disaster actually strikes. These extremely dangerous occurrences can also be very costly whether in terms of money, or the lives that may be lost. The increasing technology throughout the years has allowed countries to track when these disasters may strike, so if we can continue this trend in the future, we may have even more than enough time to evacuate the areas that will soon be hit. As climate change begins to take a toll on our environment, and increase the frequency of these disasters, preparations must be made to ensure that the economies will not be destroyed in the wake of damage. The United Nations cannot continue to simply supply a country with the funds that they need after a disaster. Instead, there needs to be a way to prepare people for these strikes, and make sure that an economy will not crash as a result of it.
Morocco is highly prone to natural hazards such as droughts, earthquakes, extreme heat, floods, tsunamis, and wildfires, so the costs of natural disasters are no stranger. In Morocco, impacts from natural hazards cost on average about $790 million every year, with floods driving the largest share of losses. In response to this unavoidable topic, Morocco has co-chaired – along with the EU- an organization called the Group of Friends. On October 16th, 2019, they had a meeting, along with 33 other UN member states, with a topic of Disaster Displacement. The goal of this organization is to better protect those displaced by disasters and climate change. In addition to this, Morocco’s minister of energy, mining, water, and environment, as well as the country’s representative of the Secretary-General for disaster risk have stressed the importance of cutting down on human losses, and therefore, they have set up institutions, mechanisms, and capacities to consolidate resilience to catastrophes.
- In the future, Morocco plans to continue their Group of Friends, to reinforce the importance of the problem at hand. Moroccan officials have talked of compiling a data basis on catastrophes and a geographic information system on major risks in the country, and these systems could be expanded all across the world. The Moroccan government also plans on Implementing climate change adaptation policies to conserve natural resources and make agriculture more resilient, as well as Improving disaster risk financing and insurance. While Morocco has already added a disaster risk insurance law in 2016 that introduces a market-based disaster insurance, as well as establishing a solidarity fund against catastrophic events that compensates uninsured household items affected by catastrophic events, they don’t want to stop there, but rather continue the progress that has already been made.
- Marie Schafer
