Issue 2 - Natural Disasters

ISSUE 2

QUESTION OF: International help for victims of extreme natural events, and other disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes, droughts and famines.

SUBMITTED BY: Costa Rica, Cuba, Ethiopia, Congo and Honduras.

CO-SUBMITTERS: Jamaica, Guatemala, Bahamas, Thailand, Madagascar.

SIGNATURES: Rwanda, Japan, Brazil, Finland, Jamaica, Canada, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sweden, Panama, France, Turkey, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, United Kingdom, Tunisia, Niger, Cyprus, USA, Guatemala, Thailand, Denmark, Republic of Korea, Norway, Madagascar, Afghanistan, Philippines, Kuwait, Bahamas, Ireland, Mexico.

The General Assembly,

Aware of the twenty-six thousand million of deaths caused by the natural disasters and the eighty-five thousand million dollars of the economic loses used on affected cities reconstructions, on rescues of hurt people, on hospitals and others necessaries costs for the survival after each of this extreme events,

Bearing in mind that these digits augment every year by 5%, and so it’s important to find solutions that can be used on the different kinds of disasters or to try to minimise the damage,

Taking into account the fact that this countries position in terms of geographical situation not only causes natural disasters, also claims too many lives,

Fully alarmed by the damaging problems that we have nowadays in a lot of countries that is causing a big impact in the world and in human race,

Deeply concerned that all these countries do not possess enough resources to survive or physical infrastructures such as schools, hospitals, etc. due to natural disasters,

Acknowledging that most of the people don’t receive a proper formation due to several conflicts and the poverty in which these countries are involved,

Realizing that the most developed countries ignore the events that are taking place in the sub-developed ones because of the absence of media reporting about what is happening there,

Pointing out that a lot of people fly to their neighbour regions escaping from their devastating situation,

Ashamed that even the neighbours of this countries with all the pollution and contamination that they emit produce climate problems that damage their environment,

Declaring that not every world country is economically and socially prepared for suffering any kind of these events,

Keeping in mind that it affects almost all the countries, and sometimes like something worst of what it is, producing damage in a superlative level, and understanding that these countries need economic power to rescue people,

Recognizing that it’s possible to prevent or reduce the quantity of natural events,

Having into account that there are humans who destroy the ambient and cause climatic change, and that making a solution or decreasing these cases can stop some of these events,

Emphasizing this can affect on a world level, and so, it’s a global issue,

Propose:

1.       Calls all the other countries to create an agreement of mutual help in case of a lack of needed services for helping the victims of the catastrophe. The agreement includes:

a.       Sending a part of the humanitarian social assistance from the neighbour countries to the country that has suffered because of the natural disaster, helping that way to support and stabilize the critical situation of the victims, and reducing the areas of work of the other humanitarian aid, normally sent by the UN or NGO’s;

b.      Taking in the emigrants of the suffering country and providing them with the basic assistance so they can survive until their country become strong enough to help them itself. This can lead to an opening of borders for that country, but although it has risks, the life of those people always must be more important than political tensions, because someday it may happen in your own country. By the same token, it will only happen in case of extreme necessity;

c.       Creating a joint fund between all the affected countries, so if one of them doesn’t have enough economic resources against the natural disasters and its consequences, it can take the part that it needs from this fund, always taking into consideration that:

A.      This fund is only used in case of extreme natural events, and the country can only take the part that the other members of the agreement accept to give it, preventing that way most of the economic manipulations and swindles that may happen without a serious vigilance;

B.      It’s an international fund created between different countries, mostly Caribbean but also from other parts of the world which gave part of their duties for this cause;

C.      It can also contain money given by other countries that want to collaborate in the sustention of the victims of the catastrophes. In case that these countries also suffer damage because of these natural disasters, and they don’t have enough economic resources, they’ll be able to use this fund for their own necessities;

2.       Calls upon stopping promoting the terrorist attacks, because although it’s a big problem, it only affects a small part of the world, while lots of countries are suffering silently due to the extreme natural events without any help or attention:

a.       Countries like Iraq, Iran or Syria should stop occupying all the TV or other type of media time, and leave space for news from other undeveloped countries with other type of problems like earthquakes, droughts, famines, etc. and where lots of innocent victims are living in poorly conditions.

b.      Countries like Germany or other European countries should stop making daily dramas of terrorist attacks or murders while in other sub-developed countries have hundreds of deaths per day and anyone knows about it, because these countries don’t care about it.

3.       Requests to spread at an international level the awareness of the poor conditions of these victims producing documentaries or recording their lives and posting it in social media and news;

4.       Recommends other countries to create an economical support for the coming NGO’s, so they can count on a minimal part of the resources that they will need in their humanitarian aid;

5.       Solemnly affirms that the type of constructions used in these areas are not sufficiently resistant against natural disasters, and that the communications between different human settlements are too poor and delicate. Searching for good resolutions, here’s a list of some reforms that can improve this situation:

a.        Impose a new type of division of the territories around the most affected villages called “zonification”, which consists in transforming these areas in green regions, such as natural parks or cultivatable lands, which will act like a natural sponge and will reduce the inundations;

b.      Reinforce the buildings with the SRF technique, invented by a Japanese architect and proved in the Tohoku earthquake. This will make the building more stable and resistant against earthquakes and hurricanes;

c.       Set aside a bigger part of the taxes that are addressed to social assistance to make reforms in the collocations of the social help stations (such as police stations or hospitals) and to construct more communication routes between several cities which only have one road to enter and exit;

6.       Encourages developed countries to help and accelerate investment in these countries in food production:

a.       Eliminate customs duties from the neighbour’s regions so the import of food can be easier and cheaper;

b.      Promote donations to industries which make canned food so a part of the production can be freely export to the suffering country;

c.       China should stop making lots of cheap products which are exported to developed countries and normally aren’t really useful, because apart from all the contamination that this country produce, it doesn’t help at all poor countries, where all this junk food can save thousands of lives.

7.       Decides to remain actively seized on the matter.