History

Coinciding with the 2001 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), an earthquake devastated Gujarat, India.  WEF members in the engineering, construction and logistics industries were ready to put their resources to work but found there was no established mechanism for getting this help to relief workers on the ground.  Faced with this, WEF members recognized that as global corporate citizens, the private sector must do more than simply fund relief organizations. In their view, business should proactively participate in multi-sector initiatives to prevent and mitigate the effects of disasters.   In response, Forum members established the Disaster Resource Network – a point of contact and coordination for companies that want to provide support to disaster management operations in developing countries.