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- Permanent Link:
- http://dpanther.fiu.edu/dpService/dpPurlService/purl/FI13042459/00001
Notes
- Summary:
- This document uses empirical data to determine the causal relationship between disasters and socioeconomic indicators, and disaster’s impact on long-term welfare at the household level. Taking an assets approach to poverty, the study looks at how disaster events affect the quantity of assets held by a household, the intensity in which they are used, and prices paid for their use. It also shows that there is a double causality in the relationship between disaster risk and poverty. Poverty tends to increase the likelihood and magnitude of hazard, while hazards in turn exacerbate the condition of poverty. The countries chosen for research were Mexico, El Salvador, Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Analyzing data from the National Center for Disaster Prevention on disaster events in Mexico between 1980 and 2006, the study found that 40% occurred in only 5 states. Only 22 of 2,445 municipalities accounted for 3,401 events, thus nearly 20% of all disasters occurred in only .9% of municipalities. Though these municipalities were found to have relatively high rates of economic development, they also had high rates of marginalization. Marginalization ranged from 25% at the lower end, and 55% of the population at the high end. Marginalization and corresponding high risk is often associated with the growth of irregular settlements due to unplanned and unregulated urbanization. They also analyze data from the Desinventar Database and other sources to determine how natural events affect the Human Development Index (HDI) and poverty levels at the municipal level from 2000 to 2005. There was a reduction of .006 on average in HDI due to disaster events at the municipal level, which is about .8% of the country’s HDI. There was also an increase of about 3.6% in the incidence of food-poverty, or the inability to cover minimum food requirements; a 3% rise in capabilities-poverty, which includes education and health care; and a 1.5% rise in assets-poverty which accounts for inability to meet minimum requirements for clothing, public transportation, and housing. This document points to an overemphasis on damages to infrastructure rather than less tangible losses that have greater lingering effects, such as impairments to children’s school attendance, increased unemployment, and drastic reductions of household assets as serious flaws in traditional disaster policy. They are also critical of a focus on disaster intervention rather than protecting households from dramatic loss prior to disaster, or disaster risk reduction (DRR). ( English )
- Subject:
- Disaster Risk Reduction ( English )
- Subject:
- Poverty ( English )
- Citation/Reference:
- López-Calva, L.F., Juárez, E.O. (2009). Evidence and policy lessons on the links between disaster risk and poverty in Latin America: methodology and summary of country studies. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Record Information
- Source Institution:
- Florida International University
- Rights Management:
- Refer to main document/publisher for use rights.
- Resource Identifier:
- FI13042459
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