Natural disasters and development

Saturday, 22 December 2012 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

THE terrible floods that followed close behind the drought have left people weary of natural disasters and the Government in need of a more proactive policy to contend with relief demands.

Customarily, the Government reacts when disasters take place, by providing cooked food and dry rations. While this is laudable, there are more sustainable steps that need to be taken to reduce the economic impact of disasters.

The growing incidence of natural disasters in Asia and the Pacific – where four of five cities globally classified as at extreme risk are located – threatens to undermine seriously rapid economic progress, calling for a much stronger focus among governments on disaster prevention, says a new study from Independent Evaluation at the Asian Development Bank.

The region has borne the brunt of the physical and economic damage of the sharp rise in natural disasters since the 1980s. Its people are four times more likely to be affected by natural disaster than in Africa and 25 times more than in Europe or North America. With 25% of the world’s Gross Domestic Product, the region accounted for 38% of the economic losses due to natural disasters during 1980-2009.

The study – ADB’s Response to Natural Disasters and Disaster Risks – calls for projects and programs to put a far greater emphasis on improving disaster prevention. Much wider recognition is needed of the fact that natural disasters, particularly storms and floods, are becoming endemic and that their increasing frequency and severity can slash economic growth and development.

The conventional idea is that natural disasters come and go, that they are just an interruption to development, and that they can be dealt with after they strike. However, there is growing international recognition that the incidence and impact of natural disasters are increasing because of persistent poverty, population growth, and climate change.

This means that governments cannot simply rehabilitate roads and bridges and then build temporary shelter. Often, poverty, gender, ethnic issues, property rights and other problems compound the difficulties and require much greater attention and capacity for response from the development community.

Floods, landslides and drought have become systemic problems in Sri Lanka that clearly have a manmade element. The recent earthquakes reported in Ampara have raised concerns that development work in the region might be the cause. These are all reasons for the more proactive policy decisions that take into account natural disasters as an economic challenge.

So far, very few countries have focused on the disaster risks in their economic development plans. Ignoring yearly cycles of drought, floods and other vulnerabilities means that responses to the disasters also remain inadequate. Already there are allegations that relief has not reached the displaced communities – putting the Government on the defensive.

Drawing disaster management into the larger discourse on development means that there will be greater readiness to deal with emergencies and also minimise the economic impact created by them. The drought together with the floods has impacted the country’s economic growth to an extensive degree but with no long-term policy initiatives in place it will simply become a recycled topic next year.