Three quarters of the world's population have been affected at least once by an earthquake, tropical cyclone, flood or drought. Development is severely hampered by natural disasters, but little thought has been given to how particular kinds of development may actually increase disaster risk in the first place.

Economic losses caused by natural disasters – estimated in the 1990s to total US$ 659.9 billion – are concentrated in the developed world, but it is the poor who bear the greatest cost in terms of lost lives and shattered livelihoods and infrastructure. In the last two decades more than 1.5 million people have been killed by natural disasters.

Despite this, the humanitarian and development communities operate largely independently of each other. Development professionals generally view disasters as exceptional natural events. The humanitarian community has made progress in reducing disaster losses, but does not address the development processes that are shaping disaster risk. A report from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) shows how inappropriate development contributes to the accumulation of disaster risk, and recommends good practice to reduce such risk.

The report presents UNDP’s Disaster Risk Index (DRI), the first global assessment of disaster risk. The DRI offers a country-by-country comparison of vulnerability to the three most significant natural hazards: earthquakes, tropical cyclones and flooding. As a first step in linking the humanitarian and development communities, the DRI index could help reduce the losses caused by natural disasters, and thus reduce damage to investments in human development.

The report finds that:

• States classified by UNDP as high human development countries represent 15 percent of the population exposed to natural hazards, but only 1.8 percent of the resulting deaths.
• Low human development countries represent 11 percent of the population exposed to natural hazards, but 53 percent of the resulting deaths.
• The rural poor are increasingly forced onto environmentally degraded land and take up highly vulnerable livelihoods in areas with high risks of natural hazards.
• Urbanisation is concentrating populations in high-risk cities, and high-risk locations within cities.
• Countries that take account of disaster risk while planning development suffer far less damage than equally vulnerable neighbouring countries.

Development needs to be regulated in terms of its impact on disaster risk. The report urges governments and the international community to:

•  create political will to encourage the development and disaster management sectors to work more closely together
• do more to collect subnational disaster data to chart complex patterns of local risk, as well as global patterns of risk
• recognise the changing nature of disaster risk and account for the consequences of global warming, urbanisation, the spread of HIV/AIDS and conflict
• consider social security and ways to lower risk or minimise loss for those without insurance cover
• enhance the influence of local groups in order to increase the sensitivity and responsiveness of development planning to disaster risk
• encourage development planning and policy that reduces disaster risk.

While humanitarian action to lessen the impact of disasters will always be vitally important, the global community must learn how to better anticipate, manage and reduce disaster risk by integrating the potential threat into its development planning and policies.

Source(s):
‘Reducing disaster risk: a challenge for development’ edited by Mark Pelling, Bureau of Crisis Prevention and Recovery, United Nations Development Programme, 2004 Full document.

Funded by: UNDP

id21 Research Highlight: 5 May 2005

Further Information:
Mark Pelling
Department of Geography
Kings College London
Strand
London WC2R 2LS
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 207 848 2462
Fax: +44 (0) 207 848 3460
Contact the contributor: mark.pelling@kcl.ac.uk

Kings College London, UK

Other related links:
'Adapting to climate change: developing countries and the global response'

'Coping with disasters in the Philippines'

'Poor indicators? Predicting and coping with flooding in India’s slums

'Stopping crises from becoming catastrophes'

'Natural disasters: the business of Asian business?'

United Nations Strategy for Disaster Reduction