Disaster Risk Governance

Four Cases from Developing Countries

Denise D. P. Thompson, Denise Thompson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781138225022
• eBook ISBN: 9781315401164
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political History & Theory
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Disaster Risk Governance offers the first extensive engagement with disaster risk governance in the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa. In the last decade and a half Kenya, Jamaica, Dominica, and Zanzibar have all suffered massive destruction from disasters caused by natural hazards. Despite the tremendous investments in disaster risk reduction (DRR), disasters have wiped out the developmental gains of these countries.

In this book, Denise Thompson argues that disaster risk governance (DRG) as a practical and academic matter has not been given the attention it deserves, and as a result, this neglect has undermined the time, money and resources invested in DRR in developing countries since the late 1970s and early 1980s. Thompson proposes that properly conceptualizing DRG based on context will help to address some of the deficiencies. Consequently, DRG needs to become a central focus, particularly for developing countries.

Written with real-life implications for developing countries, Disaster Risk Governance is perfectly suited for practitioners and researchers in area studies, disaster risk reduction and disaster governance, as well as students of disaster studies.

1 Introduction

In this book, I argue that disaster risk governance (DRG) is a significant factor in explaining disaster outcomes in developing countries. I use the term disaster risk governance to mean the specific arrangements that societies put in place to manage their disaster risks within the broader context of governance. However, as the chapter on disaster risk governance will show, the concept’s definition is far from settled because its root concept “governance” is contested. Disaster risk governance is the central focus of this book because of its centrality in disaster risk reduction. Weak governance is a disaster risk driver linked to other risk drivers, including poverty, individual disempowerment, inadequate risk reduction infrastructure, inadequate capacity and so on (see PreventionWeb, 2015) that conflate to increase vulnerability.

Done right, DRG helps to connect and then steer multiple processes, leveraging them to reduce disaster risks and our exposure to them. In that regard, disaster risk governance brings a more coherent strategy to our efforts to reduce disaster risks so as to improve its outcomes. This book focuses on disasters that result from natural hazards, including climate change in four developing countries—Kenya, Zanzibar, Jamaica, and Dominica—arguing that DRG is the missing ingredient that hampers positive disaster outcomes. In doing so, the book is framed around the following key questions: (1) Why is disaster risk governance central to achieving disaster risk reduction in developing countries? (2) How does context frame DRG? (3) What is the state of DRG in Kenya, Zanzibar, Jamaica, and Dominica? (4) Are there commonalities among the better-performing and the poorer-performing countries?

Disasters that result from natural hazards have long shown us their destructive force. Over the last several decades or so, though, their life and death impacts have been demonstrated with more frequency, killing many, wiping out entire communities, destroying national economies, and retarding development and growth. No efforts should be spared to manage their effects. To be clear, disasters impact all countries, but the governments and disaster managers of developing countries face the unenviable task of confronting their devastation and improving outcomes amid severe constraints that have their genesis in a variety of root causes—political, economic, social, world systems, mismanagement, inadequate capacity, and so on.

The poor, most of whom live in developing countries, are often more exposed and almost always more vulnerable than more affluent populations. World Bank (2018) data show that from “1995 through 2014, 89% of storm-related fatalities occurred in lower-income countries, even though these countries experienced just 26% of storms.” Disaster losses often push developing countries backwards as resources have to be shuffled around to mount a response to and work to recover from the impact of natural-hazard-related disasters. Hallegatte et al. (2016), in Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty, found that approximately 75% of the losses in economic growth are attributable to extreme weather events. Climate change threatens to push an additional 100 million people into extreme poverty by 2030. For instance, modeling data show that climate-change-driven disasters could significantly reduce food availability in poor regions in Africa by lowering crop yield by as much as 30% by 2080 and resulting losses in income (Hallegatte et al., 2016).

Moreover, developing countries are often not in a position to recover from disaster by themselves, nor are their neighbors able to come to their assistance since many are typically in a similar position developmentally. Internally, individuals are often not connected to risk transfer tools or social safety net programs (see Baarsch & Kelman, 2016) to support them through turbulent times. Within these contexts, disasters may upend efforts to eradicate poverty, build resilience and the push a sustainable development agenda (Hallegatte et al., 2016).

Although a challenge for all countries, poverty remains a vexing and profound problem in developing countries. No consensus exists on what the problem of poverty is, and there is no scientifically agreed upon definition of this political term, “poverty” (Alcock, 2006). The term remains contested, but an argument can be made for why we should try to understand it. Simply, poverty constrains options—livelihood, life prospects such as choices about food, where one lives, goes to school, educational opportunities, choices about what to do pre- and post-disaster, are all impacted by poverty.

To understand poverty, we need a multidimensional lens because of its many aspects, layers and interconnections. Using a multidimensional index better connects the fact of people’s actual existence and deprivation caused by underdevelopment, lack of access and poverty. By examining the multiple dimensions of the system, a more integrated approach can be taken to fixing the problems associated with underdevelopment (Khoday, 2018) and disasters. For instance, broad categories such as structure of the economy, resource prices, local institutions, property rights, entitlements, access, gender, race, and ethnic relations cause some households and individuals themselves to increase the environment for disasters, affirming what has long been reported in the development and gender literature.

Even as we work to develop countries, improve their growth prospects as well as the prosperity of their people, contradictions exist in development policies and practices being pushed as their remedy. Indeed, some have successfully argued that modern development is one of the root causes of the planet’s crisis (Khoday, 2018), resulting in large-scale vulnerabilities among individual, groups, and countries. New thinking on development, including the latest global development framework—the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—seems to be better comporting to the interconnections of sustained development, risk exposure, vulnerability and ecological balance. Recent global development frameworks have begun to place emphasis on this balance as a critical factor in sustainable development (Khoday, 2018). The need for this balance is very present in developing countries since many are experiencing the ill effects of ecological imbalance on their people’s daily lives with high frequency and intensity.

The increasing regularity of disasters and the number of deaths, as well as the rising cost of rebuilding, have justified the focus on and investments in disaster risk reduction since the late 1980s. In the last 15 years, Kenya, Jamaica, Dominica, and, to a lesser extent, Zanzibar have all suffered significant destruction from disasters caused by natural hazards. Post-disaster needs assessments from these disasters tend to highlight weaknesses around resourcing, capacity, funding, and coordination among actors in different measures across these countries. These gaps signify a need for a more coherent strategy to plan for disasters in the developing country context.¹ These issues have their basis in disaster risk governance (DRG). As a practical matter, DRG is not being given the attention it deserves, causing gaps in DRR, and these gaps, in turn, have undermined the time, money and resources invested in DRR since the late 1970s and early 1980s. As such, the DRR paradigm in developing countries needs a refocus.

Three of the countries covered in the book (Zanzibar, Jamaica, and Dominica) are small island developing states (SIDS), which are a subset of developing countries. The other (Kenya) is a continental country located in sub-Saharan Africa. Small island developing states are a group of just over 50 small developing countries and territories mainly concentrated in tropical and sub-tropical areas in the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, and off the coast of West Africa in the Atlantic Ocean (Kelman & West, 2009; Watson, Zinyoweru, & Moss, 2000). A few small islands such as Malta and Cyprus lie outside these areas in the Mediterranean Sea. The SIDS designation came in April 1994 at the first Global Conference on Sustainable Development in Barbados. The conference adopted the Barbados Program of Action (UN, 1994), which was updated a decade later in the Mauritius Strategy (UN, 2005).

Although not a monolith, SIDS are alike in fundamental ways. They share peculiar vulnerabilities and characteristics that make them particularly susceptible to disasters caused by natural hazards²—listed by the United Nations as a particular group of developing countries, SIDS face higher vulnerability than larger islands and continental states. They are prone to disasters that result from natural hazards and have fewer resources to dedicate to comprehensive disaster planning and disaster risk reduction. Moreover, one hazard can impact multiple small islands in the same region, rendering them incapable of helping each other in a disaster (UN, 2005). Besides, SIDS’ small size, isolation, natural hazard vulnerability, and their economic risk exposures place additional strains on their economies, ecology, and physical and social infrastructure that impact their ability to respond to disasters and recover from them. Natural-hazard-related disasters continually erode their development achievements (Possekel, 2012; World Bank, 2018).

For example, most of these countries are small coastal states where hazard events such as a storm or an earthquake may cover most of their territory, leaving the remaining unaffected parts unable to fund the recovery process internally. The 2017 hurricane in Dominica resulted in damage and destruction of around 220% of GDP (Government of Dominica, 2017) and massive displacement and loss of livelihood. Inaction to reduce the effects of climate change among Caribbean SIDS could cost them 5% of GDP by 2025 and 10% by 2050 (UN-OHRLLS, 2015). Much of the country’s capital stock and public infrastructure are exposed to storm surges, flooding and high wind because of their concentration in coastal areas. Although not the only or most significant development indicator, such high average GDP losses represent a severe drag on long-term development. Moreover, continued erosion of GDP will, over time, serve to wipe out development gains, leaving many residents socially vulnerable.

More fundamental still, SIDS are likely ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Boxes
• Acknowledgments
• List of Acronyms
• 1 Introduction
• PART I
• PART II
• Index