The Vietnam Red Cross (VNRC), in collaboration with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, today released the 2014 World Disaster Report.

Vietnam reported 14 floods and storms last year - the highest during the past decade - that affected the lives of 4.13 million people.

The report focuses on culture and risks in relation to disaster prevention and advocates solutions that will address often-neglected factors and related human behaviour. These factors strongly affect the way in which people interpret and behave in relation to the risks they face.

There is an urgent need to ensure that humanitarian organisations,

governments and donors recognise these human dynamics and take cultural differences into account, so that they do not have unrealistic approaches to disaster risk reduction.

"The report aims to bring these cultural issues into the open for discussion so they are better incorporated in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation," said VNRC Chairman Nguyen Hai Duong at the event.

"The report will also help strengthen awareness and collaboration of

organisations, institutions and mass media on disaster risk reduction, and rehabilitation, and global climate change adaptation," added Duong.

The report explores the different ways in which culture affects disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, and how disasters and risks influence culture. It examines why people choose to live in areas prone to hazards, and how culture and beliefs enable them to live with the risks they face.

The World Disaster Report calls for a more comprehensive, people-centric approach in order to ensure that future disaster risk reduction interventions are culturally sensitive, more acceptable to local people and therefore, more effective.

VNRC statistics said that natural disasters affected the lives of about 100 million people world-wide in 2013, of which 87 per cent live in Asia.

Vietnam reported 14 floods and storms last year - the highest during the past decade - that affected the lives of 4.13 million people.