Community members living in high-altitude neighborhoods of Puno map hazards and emergency response actions.
In this next installment in the Pounds of Prevention series, we travel to the southeastern regions of Puno and Cusco in Peru. Here USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance has been working through its partners with the government and the private sector to help communities prepare for future disasters. Villages that never before received local weather information now benefit from daily forecasts as well as early warnings and alerts to severe weather. These same communities received disaster preparedness training and may even one day benefit from the work to design climate-appropriate transitional shelters should the need arise.
Benjamin Franklin is famous for the adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Today, we are faced with great challenges brought about by increasing population and urbanization, a changing climate, and a demonstrated increase in the frequency and severity of natural disasters. To continue to tackle these challenges, what has become clear is this: We need more than an ounce of prevention; we need pounds of prevention! Read more >>
