Disaster response has been described as the last resort of the amateur: an unkind assessment but not without a grain of truth. Disaster generates an emotional response, and new disaster organisations are born with each new disaster. Lessons of the past on disaster management have to be learned anew. The need to increase the professionalism of disaster response is evident. All the more so as, in disaster terms, the world is getting worse, not better. Disasters become more complex, frequently involving the interaction of a disaster event, politics and technology. The last few years have also seen a growth in research into the area of disaster response. Too often, however, disaster researchers and disaster organisations have gone their separate ways. There is a need for these two groups to get together to devise more practical and professional approaches to disaster response. The "World Disasters Report," produced by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies with the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, is a contribution to this effort of professionalisation. It provides facts and statistics, analysis and an exploration of trends, to dispel a number of myths about disasters and to define and advocate good practice. This is the first volume of Annual Reports which will become a vital tool for all those involved in the area of disaster response.