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Disasters and Development

Disasters and Development. Dr Supriya Akerkar. Outline of the lecture. What is a disaster? What is a disaster risk? What are the links between disaster and development?. Media and Disaster representations What do these images display? . Malaria outbreak kills over 4,000 in Ethiopia.

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Disasters and Development

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  1. Disasters and Development Dr SupriyaAkerkar

  2. Outline of the lecture • What is a disaster? • What is a disaster risk? • What are the links between disaster and development?

  3. Media and Disaster representationsWhat do these images display?

  4. Malaria outbreak kills over 4,000 in Ethiopia ADDIS ABABA, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Over 4,000 people have died in a malaria epidemic that has hit Ethiopia's northern region in the last four months, an official said on Wednesday (10 September 2003). Malaria is a major killer in Ethiopia with 75 percent of the population at risk and five million cases reported annually, according to the country's health ministry. "Around 4,200 persons have died due to a malaria epidemic caused by stagnant pools of water that had served as a breeding ground for mosquitoes'' district officer said. Many who could have been saved had died because of a lack of anti-malaria medicine. • http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/UNID/35E21D9EF322F51F49256D9E000CEEA8?OpenDocument

  5. Approaches to Disasters • Disaster Risk = Hazard X Vulnerability • Hazards approach: physical vulnerability • Social/political economy: vulnerability approach • (PAR or Pressure and Release model by Blaikie, 1994 et al; source: Blackie P et al 1994 : At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s vulnerability and Disasters; London Routledge.

  6. Who lives in these disaster prone areas?source: Emma Porio, social and ecological vulnerability of Urban poor communities in Metro Manila, School of social sciences, Manila University • Live in low-lying or swampy/wetlands, informal settlements • Low-income and/or no stable sources of income (less than US$ 1/day); high number of dependents • Majority (about 80 percent) have no security of tenure • About 75 percent have no adequate access to basic services (potable water, electricity, sanitation facilities get flooded, etc.) • About 75 percent regularly suffer income/job loss, sickness, and schooling of children as a result of floods/typhoons • About 75 percent suffer loss of HH appliances, garments or need house repair due to typhoons/floods • Single-headed/female-headed households (singles, widows, widowers and old persons) • Migrants

  7. It is only recently that there has been a dialogue between the two communities. In 2006 UNN/ISDR said to UNFCCC that it could provide expertise – see link to UN/ISDR statement on BB. Areas of expertise that UN/ISDR brings are:- Risk and vulnerability assessment expertise Adaptation planning methods Experience of extreme events and Early Warning Systems Technologies and know how including indigenous knowledge on DRR UN/ISDR does have capacity for dealing with adaptation (agriculture for example) but it is its capacity in risk and vulnerability assessments that is the most useful

  8. Disaster Trends

  9. United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) • Disaster A serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society involving widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses and impacts, which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources • Disaster risk The potential disaster losses, in lives, health status, livelihoods, assets and services, which could occur to a particular community or a society over some specified future time period • Disaster risk management The systematic process of using administrative directives, organizations, and operational skills and capacities to implement strategies, policies and improved coping capacities in order to lessen the adverse impacts of hazards and the possibility of disaster. • Disaster risk reduction plan: A document prepared by an authority, sector, organization or enterprise that sets out goals and specific objectives for reducing disaster risks together with related actions to accomplish these objectives

  10. Vulnerability..... • Incapacity to anticipate, to face, to withstand, and to recover from the impact of a calamitous event • Vulnerable people are those unable to avoid or unable to absorb potential harm • Source: Blaikie et al 2004

  11. Unpacking social vulnerability • Disproportionate death toll? • Why? • In Nagapattinam, 2,406 women died, compared with 1,883 men. • In Cuddalore in India, almost three times as many women were killed as men, with 391 female deaths, compared with 146 men. In Devanampattinam village in Cuddalore, for example, 42 women died compared with 21 men. In Pachaankuppam village, the only people to die were women.

  12. Unpacking social vulnerability • Gender differences found in early warning, risk perceptions due to different social networks used in 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in Northern California Source: O'Brien, Paul W. and Patricia Atchison.(1998) ‘Gender Differentiation and Aftershock Warning Response’ in The Gendered Terrain of Disaster: Through Women's Eyes, edited by E. Enarson and B. H. Morrow. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing , pp. 173-180

  13. Children and Disasters • In Pakistan, 500 children in one school alone were crushed to death when the building collapsed on them in the 2005 earthquake. £500 could have paid to make the school earthquake resistant: just £1 per child. Source: http://www.christianaid.org.uk/emergencies/prevention/facts.aspx

  14. Children and Disasters • “All children in the group are attending the school. Yet there are not enough buses to go to school. Small children get crushed in the bus due to the crowd. Some children in Kovalam cannot continue their studies after school due to the lack of money and loss of certificates in the tsunami. Some children in Vedaraniam found it difficult to go to school as it was far away and they had to walk quite a distance.” (After tsunami, Tamil Nadu, India (13-18 years old) • Source: Plan international, Dec2005 Children and the Tsunami ; Engaging with children in disaster response, recovery and risk reduction: Learning from children’s participation in the tsunami response, Bangkok

  15. Age and Disasters • After super cyclone in Orissa, India 1999, Elderly people being custodian of family and community had a greater sense of resource loss with little hope to regain the resources at the end of their lives, inducing more distress. • Source: Suar, Mishra and Khuntia (2007) ‘Placing age differences in the context of the Orissa supercylone : Who experiences psychological distress?’, Asian Journal of Social Psychology Vol 10, 117-122

  16. Disability and Disasters • A study of people living in seismically active areas of California, found that people with disabilities had these additional situational characteristics that could increase their vulnerability to harm and loss in an earthquake and its aftermath: • Lower incomes than nondisabled counterparts • Lived in unreinforced masonry buildings, i.e. older buildings with low-rent • units near urban centers • Lived outside caregiving institutions (nursing homes, halfway houses) with legislated obligations to prepare for emergencies • Lived inside caregiving institutions which may lack features designed to enhance the safety of residents (e.g. provisions for safe evacuation, nonstructural hazard mitigation, reserve water and power supplies, etc.) • Lived on their own (14% in this study lived alone) • Suffered the social distance or stigma associated with being labeled ‘disabled’ • Source: Wisner, Ben (2002) ‘Disability and Disaster:Victimhood and Agency in Earthquake Risk Reduction’ in Rodrigue C and E. Rovai (eds.) Earthquakes, London: Routledge

  17. Caste, Race and Ethnicity • Impact of Hurricane Andrew in 1992: black people were less likely to relocate after hurricane not only because of economic constraints, but because of barriers created by residential segregation. • Source: Walter Gillis Peacock and Chris Girard (1997) ‘Ethnic and Racial Inequalities in Hurricane Damage and Insurance Settlements’ in Hurricane Andrew ed by Walter Peacock; Betty Morrow and Hugh Gladwin; Routledge publication, London and New York, pp. 171-190

  18. Migrants? • Burmese migrants in Thailand faced exclusion from all disaster recovery support after 2004 tsunami • Source: Akerkar 2007

  19. Social Exclusion? • Why do some social groups take longer to recover?

  20. Disaster and development linkages The global policy response • Hyogo Framework for Action http://www.unisdr.org/eng/hfa/hfa.htm • Rio and post Rio initiatives for sustainable development: dealing with climate and other environmental changes

  21. Disasters and Development • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR733gGIFdA

  22. Thank you

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