Disaster impact mitigation through international standards

This paper presents the International Electrotechnical Commission's (IEC) approach with regard to disaster risk and impact mitigation. The publication recognises that electricity supply is often the first thing to go when disaster strikes. Electrical installations, devices and supply are generally directly and adversely affected by manmade disasters or natural phenomena.

The document demonstrates through various case studies that IEC International Standards and Conformity Assessment (CA) Systems promote safety and help increase the resiliency of electrical and electronic systems and devices. IEC's work is to help directly reduce the number and severity of certain categories of disasters and to speed up disaster recovery in others.

This document is an input paper of the 2015 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction.