Development Strategies Must Include Assessment of a Country’s Vulnerability to Natural Disasters
20 October 2005
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| "Natural disasters set back the development process by diverting resources to emergency relief and recovery." |
In her article 'When Things Are Not Equal: Natural Disasters and Attainment of the MDGs' in the Commonwealth Foundation's recent publication 'Breaking with Business as Usual -- Perspectives from Civil Society in the Commonwealth on the Millennium Development Goals', Ms Attzs states natural disasters can contribute greatly to a country's vulnerability and where they severely compromise a society's adaptive capacity, there may be enormous, unforeseen challenges to realising specific development targets such as the MDGs.
"Natural disasters set back the development process by diverting resources to emergency relief and recovery. There are direct costs of disasters associated with physical damage, and loss of social and economic infrastructure. There are indirect costs that result from 'downstream disruption to the flow of goods and services', including basic services and telecommunications, as well as loss of productivity due to injury, disease and death," she explains.
"There are also secondary effects, or short and long term impacts on the economy and socio-economic conditions, including fiscal and economic performance, levels of household and national indebtedness, and the effects of relocating or restructuring the workforce."
Ms Attzs writes that in Grenada the cost of damage arising from Hurricane Ivan last year was US$900 million, more than 200 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), causing government revenues to slump dramatically, triggering severe fiscal disequilibrium. Sri Lanka, which was one of ten countries affected by the Indian Ocean tsunami in December 2004, faced physical damage estimated at between US$1.3 and US$1.5 billion. More than 35,000 people lost their lives, with half-a-million made homeless. The fishing and tourism industries were badly affected, causing massive job losses.
"An ecological shock can affect the capacity of a country to meet its debt obligations, especially if the country already has a high debt-service ratio. A shock could mean a decline in GDP growth and could result in reallocations of central government's revenue to disaster-related priority areas, including the rebuilding of infrastructure."
Apart from socio-economic impacts of natural disasters, the environmental implications include the loss of land and environmental degradation, pollution of water resources and the decline in the level of sanitation. Ms Attzs says countries with low resilience to disasters could retard the realisation of development objectives, while poor development strategies could lead to environmental degradation and disaster. She stressed the need for development plans to take into account economic, environmental and social concerns.
"Countries challenged by natural disasters may need extra support beyond emergency relief to meet the MDG targets. If a country has to grapple with several challenges, such as an HIV/AIDS pandemic, declining economic growth and increasing poverty, as well as an ecological shock, it is perhaps too optimistic to assume that the country could address these and simultaneously meet some of the other MDG targets."
For more details on 'Breaking with Business as Usual -- Perspectives from Civil Society in the Commonwealth on the Millennium Development Goals', visit the website http://www.commonwealthfoundation.com/.
CNIS - Commonwealth News and Information Service Issue 257, 19 October 2005
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