The disproportionately high risk of disaster faced by a billion slum-dwellers across the world could be significantly reduced with prudent investment, states a new report. 'We cannot stop urbanisation but we shouldn't be naïve; a trend does not mean destiny, disasters can be prevented,' Matthias Schmale, the under-secretary-general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said in Nairobi at the global launch of the 2010 edition of the World Disasters Report.