chapter 4 - DRK

Strictly under embargo until Wednesday 22 September at 00:01 GMT (02:01 Geneva time)that the needs and priorities of those most at risk from disaster are addressed. But largedevelopment assistance agencies frequently do not know how to support communitylevelorganizations – indeed, often they never talk to them; they were set up to channellarge sums to national governments, not to support the myriad community and localgovernment initiatives that can reduce disaster risk and that need modest externalsupport.Where city and municipal governments have sufficient capacity, focus on their lowincomehouseholds and have good relations with their citizens, the possibilities fordisaster risk reduction are greatly enhanced. These cities and municipalities provideus with the evidence that an urbanizing world need not ‘urbanize’ disaster risks. Mostdisaster risk reduction is within their conventional urban management roles – forinstance, in land-use management, in strategic urban planning and in setting andenforcing regulations for land use, buildings and infrastructure. So it is the competenceand capacity of city and municipal governments to work with and support their lowincomepopulations that defines whether urbanization is associated with disaster risk.It is down to the governments of high-income nations to agree to the greenhouse gasemission reductions that are needed to avoid ‘dangerous climate change’; of course, thisdepends too on low-carbon development paths for successful low- and middle-incomenations but their governments will not agree to these unless high-income nations demonstratetheir commitments. And, again, it is down to the competence and capacity ofcity and municipal governments to work with and support their low-income populationsthat will define whether the climate change impacts that cannot be avoided doactually result in urban disasters.This report has enough examples of good practice from low- and middle-incomenations to show that urban disaster risk reduction is possible but these are still the exceptions.Good local land-use management supported by good local risk assessments cantransform urban plans into disaster reduction plans as unsafe sites are avoided or madesafe. Good upgrading programmes for informal settlements that are well informed inrisk reduction measures can dramatically reduce disaster risk. A framework of supportfrom higher levels of government and international agencies is required. Learning networksneed to be nurtured for city authorities, urban professionals and citizen groups.Overall, this needs a sea-change in the preparedness and capacity of most bilateral aidagencies to work in urban areas with urban organizations and local authorities.This chapter, including Box 1.1, was written by David Satterthwaite, Senior Fellow, InternationalInstitute for Environment and Development (IIED). Box 1.2 was written byKathie Klarreich, a freelance journalist and Haiti specialist.World Disasters Report 2010 – Focus on urban risk27