The report warns that governments must deal with the increased risk of disasters in some of the world’s poorest areas. That means that taking steps to reduce the risk should be part of any poverty prevention program. The report predicts that, by 2030, up to 325 million extremely poor people will live in the 49 countries threatened most by natural disaster. Most of those countries are in South Asia or in Africa, south of the Sahara Desert.

Tom Mitchell is with the Overseas Development Institute. He says there is a relationship between poverty and natural disasters – or what he calls natural hazards.

“What we found is there’s a very close overlap between the countries that we expect to have very high levels of poverty still in 2030 and the countries most exposed to natural hazards. And now this shouldn’t really come as a surprise because we know that the poorest and most vulnerable people get hit hardest by extreme events. So there really is a very close link between poverty and disasters.”

The report says 11 countries are most at risk for poverty resulting from disasters. Eight of the 11 are in Africa. They include the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, South Sudan and Uganda. The Asian nations are Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan. The report identified India as a country that would have large numbers of poor people at risk.

“In 2030, we expect there to still be very significant numbers of poor people living in India - possibly above a hundred million. In addition, this is a country that’s going to be extremely exposed natural hazards. It’s got very good central capacity to manage the problem. But at state level - some of which are as big as countries by themselves - the capacity is much more variable.”