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Ilan Noy, Chair in the Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

NZ has no dedicated database to track losses from weather disasters – without it, we’re planning in the dark

STR/AFP via Getty Images

Following the Trump administration’s abrupt cuts to USAID funding last month, the online international disaster database EM-DAT (normally funded by USAID) went dark for a week.

EM-DAT collates data on the occurrence and impacts of thousands of mass disasters worldwide and records both human and economic losses in a publicly available dataset. It relies on various sources, including United Nations agencies and non-governmental organisations, but also news reports.

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