Linking poverty reduction to disaster risk management

Material Information

Title:
Linking poverty reduction to disaster risk management
Creator:
Annette Schmidt
Lena Bloemertz
Elisio Macamo
Disaster Risk Reduction Program, Florida International University (DRR/FIU)
Publisher:
Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ)
Publication Date:
Copyright Date:
2005
Language:
English

Subjects

Subjects / Keywords:
Risk management ( lcshac )
Sustainable development ( lcshac )
Poverty ( lcshac )
Genre:
non-fiction ( marcgt )

Notes

Summary:
This study calls for the integration of disaster risk management (DRM) into poverty reduction efforts. It suggests various strategies that can be utilized to link these two policy arenas as central components of sustainable development planning. While traditionally disasters were understood as acts of nature, today we know that they are generally the product of interactions between hazards and the vulnerable communities in their paths. One of the critical factors increasing vulnerability to hazards around the world is poverty. It is here that this document makes the link between poverty reduction efforts and DRM, taking vulnerability to be a central concept in both. While there is no linear relationship between vulnerability and poverty, there is a cyclical relationship. Impoverished communities are often located in areas most exposed to hazards, are plagued by environmental degradation, least likely to have adhered to building codes and land use guidelines, and thus most likely to face disaster. In turn, disasters destroy the limited assets and livelihoods of these communities, increasing levels of poverty, and thus magnifying their vulnerability to future hazard events. The first two chapters of the document elaborate on these interactions between poverty, vulnerability, and disaster. The third highlights the concepts of sustainable livelihoods, risk analysis, and monitoring, and discusses how they can be integrated into poverty reduction strategies. Chapters 4 and 5 provide an overview of the actors involved in the development and DRM sectors and address efforts to narrow the gap between them. Chapter 6 looks at academic understandings of risks as calculated decisions to face hazards, and delves into how societies understand hazards as risks, and the indigenous strategies they utilize to face them. In the documents final chapter, GTZ makes a number of recommendations. It advocates increasing the dissemination of information on the relationship between disaster risks and poverty within the development sector, and the integration of DRM concepts into development planning documents. GTZ supports efforts to raise awareness of disaster risks and DRM in developing countries prone to disasters, while helping to increase their capacities to integrate DRM into their poverty reduction policies. It also calls for building community-capacities to carry out this process of integration.
Subject:
General Risk Management
Subject:
Poverty
Citation/Reference:
Schmidt, A., Bloemertz, L., and Macamo, E. (Ed.). (2005). Linking poverty reduction and disaster risk management. Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit/German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ).

Record Information

Source Institution:
Florida International University
Rights Management:
Refer to main document/publisher for use rights.
Resource Identifier:
FI13042645

dpSobek Membership

Aggregations:
Disaster Risk Reduction