Dhaka city, Bangladesh is the location of an anticipatory action initiative for dengue fever with START Network´s Forewarn (a network of risk analysts). Ashraful Haque explained that most cases of dengue are from Dhaka city. After registering 166 deaths in 2019, Forewarn decided to investigate the problem by interviewing many people who had survived, and found out that people had to spend a lot on treatment, costs rising the longer the hospitalisation. A first step in addressing the problem was to form a Forewarn expert group including the City Corporation, biologists, epidemiologists, media journalists, climatologists, etc. which laid the foundations for early actions work. "Getting the right expertise, also within the community, is key to understanding the context and preparing early actions", Ashraful says.

Hilla Wessel

Lucy Price, IFRC APRO, Regional Urban Risk Management Coordinator enthusiastically said “Cities in the Asia Pacific are hubs of opportunity, culture, diversity, amazing food, markets and services - it's no wonder that as of 2019 the Asia Pacific became primarily urban, and hosts the majority of the world's megacities - as cities have so much to offer." Simultaneously, she said, the facets which make cities complex and dynamic also impact humanitarian assistance. Jerome Faucet, IFRC Disaster Risk Reduction Advisor for the Asia/Pacific region, agreed in that the large, sprawling cities in the Asia-Pacific region are fascinating and lively places to live in. However, this comes with the very many specific risks, like that increase of disease propagation and other disaster risks.

Hilla Wessel