By Paul Knox Clarke, Principal, ADAPT Initiative, United Kingdom

I can’t claim to have read every one of the 225 issues of Southasiadisasters.net – but I have read quite a few of them, and every single time I have come across something new (to me), interesting, and important.

SouthAsiaDisasters.net readership benefits from an approach that seems to me to be far less narrow and self-regarding than that of the formal humanitarian system. It is animated not by a specific mandate or the desire to follow donor priorities, but by the experiences, concerns and curiosities of practitioners and researchers fully engaged in the reality of disasters, and the experiences of those most vulnerable to them.

This engagement creates one of the publication’s most characteristic attributes: a focus on power, marginalisation and risk, and how these abstract concepts play out for real people getting on with their lives. Rather than – largely anonymous – ‘vulnerable groups’,  Southasiadisasters.net considers the realities of risk for real people: school children, tram drivers, worshippers at religious festivals and women farmers.

A focus on what is really happening on the ground, and where, means that Southasiadisasters.net often identifies topics and trends well before they become mainstream  – and some that never do become mainstream, but should be. In 2015, long before many of us became involved in the topic, the publication was considering the risks of heatwaves (an area which it has considered, to great effect, to this day). The use of insurance as an approach to disaster management, which is such a large part of current conversations about (climate) risk finance, was first addressed in Southasiadisasters.net fifteen years ago. Similarly, Southasiadisasters.net has addressed the often overlooked issue of crowd management, and has kept a consistent focus on challenges experienced by poor people in cities.

I may not be reading Southasiadisasters.net in 2045, but I hope that, when it reaches forty years of age, even more than the current 30,000 subscribers will be – I’m sure it will be at least as immediate and engaging then as it is now.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of AIDMI.