Bridging disaster-risk reduction and development

After Hurricane Mitch struck Honduras in 1998, causing the death of an estimated 7,000 people and the disappearance of another 8,300, President Carlos Flores declared, “We lost in 72 hours what [has] taken more than 50 years to build, bit by bit." The Honduran losses are only one example amid hundreds of natural disasters that affect populations all over the word, again and again. According to UN figures, in the past 10 years more than 200 million people have been affected by natural disasters each year – a figure that is seven times greater than the number of those affected by conflict. According to a statement by the relief organisation Tearfund, “Ninety-eight percent of those killed and affected by natural disasters come from developing countries, underlining the link between poverty and vulnerability to disaster.” A country’s level of development has a direct impact on the damage natural hazards inflict on populations. Less-developed countries suffer most, as they are more frequently hit and more severely affected. Their weak infrastructure and limited capacity for prevention makes them more vulnerable than wealthy, industrialised nations. In fact, developing countries are usually more severely affected by disasters of lesser magnitude. For example, the American coastline in Florida is hit year after year by hurricanes, but in spite of their vulnerability to tropical storms, communities are able to bounce back rather quickly, thanks to a stable infrastructure, early preparation for disaster, and immediate response to damage. For this reason, relief and development organisations are looking at ways to work together to provide immediate help to vulnerable populations after a natural disaster while at the same time looking towards the future. Disaster-risk reduction -- the prevention and mitigation of populations’ vulnerabilities to natural hazards -- is what experts describe as the “missing link” between emergency relief operations and long-term development policies. However, once the emergency phase of disaster response is over and reconstruction starts, most strategies aim at restoring a society’s pre-disaster state. Infrastructure is rebuilt as it stood before the earthquake, flood or tsunami. Reconstruction rarely makes communities more resilient to natural hazards, and victims are often unable to safeguard developmental achievements from future catastrophes. From response to anticipation Humanitarian-aid organisations have come to realise that emergency relief is only part of the response to natural hazards. Mohammed Qazilbash directs CARE International’s operations in the refugee camp of Daadab, in north-eastern Kenya, an arid region regularly affected by severe droughts. “Communities have their own coping mechanisms. Aid intervenes only when these are exhausted,” he explained. The charity assists refugees with food and equipment when disaster strikes, which is almost every year. But CARE also tries to prepare vulnerable populations before they are hit. The organisation trains households and communities to harvest and extract water from surface and under-surface water tables, in order to be better prepared for the recurrent dry spells. Qazilbash explained the need to move beyond simple response and to anticipate disasters and their humanitarian toll. “We need to be seen as agents of change, and not only as pure, hardcore humanitarian agents. We try to provide a bridge to development initiatives,” he said. CARE’s aim is to ensure that when the next dry season comes in Daadab, refugees will be able to fend for themselves. Their livelihoods will have been made sustainable.

After December 2003's massive earthquake hit Bam, the relief and recovery process depended on traditional social networks. Credit: Christopher Black/International Federation

Development programmes that anticipate hardship minimise the need for emergency response further down the road. Without them, “millions of people will never escape the poverty trap, as with each new flood, drought or cyclone, precious gains being made in poverty eradication are […] swept away,” according to Tearfund. The impact of disasters is being felt globally as an eroding force, damaging years of development progress in some areas. The 26 December 2004 tsunami, for example, wiped out decades of developmental accomplishments in seconds, destroying schools, clinics, power plants and harbours essential to residents’ livelihoods. Post-disaster operations, an opportunity to reduce vulnerability For years, development experts and field workers have emphasized that in spite of the tremendous destruction these disasters bring, post-disaster operations are an opportunity to make societies more resilient to the impact of future natural hazards. Post-disaster recovery is an opportunity to go beyond the simple restoration of pre-existing livelihoods and infrastructure. It is a chance to implement better development policies by incorporating disaster-risk reduction strategies. Kenneth Westgate, Regional Disaster Reduction Adviser for Africa with the UN’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (UNDP - BCPR), explains the irony of post-disaster development and how for many affected communities the focus on well-considered development strategy only takes place after a tragedy has struck. “Relief assumes that disaster has occurred. In other words, we tend to start thinking about longer-term issues only after disaster has occurred. That is supposed to be the window of opportunity.” But the opportunity is rarely seized. After disasters strike, emergency shelters must be provided to victims as quickly as possible. This means buildings and infrastructure are often rebuilt in haste, using the same weak materials, until the next hazard flattens them once more. The earthquake that struck the Iranian city of Bam on 26 December 2003 cost 30,000 lives and left more than 150,000 people homeless, according to local estimates. To provide shelters to residents in the dead of winter, houses were quickly rebuilt using traditional mud-bricks, a weak material hardly resistant to any hazard, let alone powerful earthquakes. “Relief to recovery to development is frequently relief ... to when the money runs out,” adds Westgate. The price tag of relief Emergency response to disasters traditionally drains the major part of humanitarian funding. Westgate explained that a big-picture approach is difficult because donor funds for relief and donor funds for development are administered separately. “Relief is not enabled by the same people who enable development,” he said. “There are some capacity issues here.” In 2004, agencies and governments spent at least US $4.5 billion on emergency relief operations, according to the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ (OCHA) global financial tracking system (FTS).

The impact a drought has on livestock can severely set back economic stability and development in rural communities. The drought in parts of Somalia in early 2005 caused widespread livestock death. Credit: IRIN

Figures for contributions allocated to natural disasters – for both prevention and response – during the same period amounted to $567 million only, or roughly 12 percent of the total monitored by FTS. The figures are symptomatic of the financial and policy divide between relief, reconstruction and development. Natural disasters rarely make it to the top of donors’ funding agendas. Shelters and housing are a recurring example. Esteban León, Disaster Management Specialist for Habitat, the UN’s human settlement program, explains: “donors do not prioritise shelters and other long-term programs in an emergency.” Sustainable shelters, an essential part of development strategies, are often overlooked during relief operations. “There will be funding available for food and water, for instance, but not for resistant shelters,” adds León. Reconstruction is often pointless if the underlying causes of the devastation – whether weak constructions, unplanned urbanisation, or unprepared populations -- are not addressed. “Insuring development” The World Conference on Natural Disaster Reduction held in Yokohama, Japan, in May 1994, stated that “disasters are the unresolved consequences of development choices that governments, private organisations and individuals make every day.” According to Feng Min Kan, who heads the UN’s International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) for Africa, “there has been a recent realisation that disaster-risk reduction is essential to making development sustainable.” The ISDR defines sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Therefore, says Kan, “disaster-risk reduction acts as an ‘insurance policy’ for sustainable development and the Millennium Development Goals,” Kan adds. Bracing for disaster will help ensure that developmental progress is safeguarded against sudden destruction. Similarly, the UNDP-BCPR describes disaster-risk reduction as an ongoing concern that should span the entire relief-to-development continuum, and not only provide a “bridge” between emergency response and sustainable development. Disaster-risk reduction, pillar of development sustainability The Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development, adopted by the UN in September 2002, reaffirms the need to place particular focus on natural disasters as a “severe threats to the sustainable development of our people.” “Disaster-risk reduction impacts all areas of development: governance, poverty reduction, the environment. … It is the link between relief and development,” says Kan. “Africa, for instance, has an opportunity to mainstream disaster-risk reduction into the relief-to-development continuum.” Following the global impetus, the African Union and its developmental partners (including the African Development Bank) have adopted continent-wide Guidelines, a Strategy, and Recommendations compiled by the African Union and for their use. On a policy level, this means that national governments are enticed to incorporate disaster-risk reduction measures in the much-cited PRSP frameworks that describe national policies and programmes aimed at achieving sustainable development. “Every aspect of disaster and disaster risk is a development concern, from the mechanisms needed to ensure that the impact of disaster is reduced to the programmes that try to ensure that disaster risks are reduced over the long term,” concludes Westgate. Disaster-risk reduction policies must permeate international assistance, whether emergency relief or long-term development, in order to preserve developing countries’ progress.