The Averted Disaster Award is the premier recognition of successful disaster mitigation interventions that go unnoticed precisely because of their success. While the news often highlights catastrophes, they don’t focus on the buildings that stayed standing due to earthquake-resistant building codes, the wildfires avoided due to effective forest management, or the early-warning systems that saved lives in a typhoon. In the world of Disaster Risk Management (DRM), success means ‘nothing happens’ and as a result can cause policy makers and society at large to undervalue the importance of proactive intervention. The Averted Disaster Award sheds light on successes in DRM and ‘what might have been’ to recognize the outstanding work of those who invest in measures that keep our communities and world safe.

Nominations for the Averted Disaster Award 2022 have now closed.  Thank you to all who applied.