From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec
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From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

oxfam.qc.ca
12.07.2015 Views

THE RISK OF NATURAL DISASTERJanuary 2001 was a bad month for earthquakes, with major tremorsstriking in India, El Salvador, and the north-west USA around Seattle.On the face of it, nothing could more resemble ‘acts of God’ thanearthquakes, which in ages past were seen as instruments of divinewrath. However, the human impact was anything but preordained.These three earthquakes were of similar orders of magnitude, butkilled 20,000 people in India, 600 in El Salvador, and none in Seattle.Even allowing for geological differences, the explanation for such ahuge disparity lay not in nature, but in poverty and power. Nature isneutral, but disasters discriminate. In India, poor enforcement ofbuilding codes added to the toll, as high-rise buildings collapsed. In ElSalvador, mudslides swept away the shanty homes of families who hadfled rural poverty and who had nowhere else to live but the steep,deforested slopes of ravines.Like other sources of vulnerability, disasters shine a spotlight oninequality. Rich countries and communities have resources andsystems that can cope (much of Europe and North America have anatural disaster that strikes every year – it is called winter). Poorcountries and communities lack the resources to cope with shocks.The hazard may be natural but the risk (hazard x vulnerability) isgenerated by social, economic, and political inequality and injustice.Far more attention needs to be paid to reducing the vulnerabilityaspect of risk by redistributing voice and power to poor people,245

FROM POVERTY TO POWERwhether in the process of preparing for disasters, or in the subsequentresponse and recovery process.Such an effort must combine empoweringpoor people and communities to become active protagonists inpreparing for, and coping with disasters, with building effective andaccountable state machineries for disaster management.Disasters strike in many forms, but (with the exception of the 2004Indian Ocean tsunami) the most deadly is drought and subsequentfamine, which accounted for nearly half of all disaster-relateddeaths in 1994–2003. Floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes and other‘windstorms’ accounted for the majority of the remainder.Every day, almost 200 people die as a result of a disaster, but thenumber of deaths has halved over the past 30 years, thanks to a combinationof more effective early-warning systems and better disasterpreparedness at the community level. 77 However, the total number ofpeople affected by disasters is rising, and almost doubled between 1990and 1999. Clearly, while public capacity to prevent deaths is improving,the vulnerability of people living in poverty remains, and is exacerbatedby issues such as increasing population in vulnerable areas and thedeterioration of the environment, including climate change. 78At a national level, poor countries and weak governments are lessable to protect vulnerable people. On average, the number of peopleaffected by disasters in developing countries is 150 times higher thanin rich countries, whereas the population is only five times greater.The corresponding economic losses are 20 times larger, whenexpressed as a percentage of respective gross national products. In2002, over a third of all ‘natural disasters’occurred in Africa, constitutingone of the region’s largest obstacles to reducing poverty, conflict, andfood insecurity. 79 Poor people in wealthy countries also suffer whentheir governments fail to invest in disaster preparedness or to maintainessential infrastructure, as became evident in the USA in the wake ofHurricane Katrina in 2005.Within all countries,marginalised people and communities are morelikely to be hurt than the powerful, with factors such as age, gender,disability, political affiliation, or ethnicity weighing heavily. Disastersalso have a disproportionate effect on women. In the wake of a disaster,women tend to have less access to health, social, and information servicesthan men, and therefore are less able to deal with further stresses.246

THE RISK OF NATURAL DISASTERJanuary 2001 was a bad month for earthquakes, with major tremorsstriking in India, El Salvador, and the north-west USA around Seattle.On the face of it, nothing could more resemble ‘acts of God’ thanearthquakes, which in ages past were seen as instruments of divinewrath. However, the human impact was anything but preordained.These three earthquakes were of similar orders of magnitude, butkilled 20,000 people in India, 600 in El Salvador, and none in Seattle.Even allowing for geological differences, the explanation for such ahuge disparity lay not in nature, but in <strong>poverty</strong> and <strong>power</strong>. Nature isneutral, but disasters discriminate. In India, poor enforcement ofbuilding codes added <strong>to</strong> the <strong>to</strong>ll, as high-rise buildings collapsed. In ElSalvador, mudslides swept away the shanty homes of families who hadfled rural <strong>poverty</strong> and who had nowhere else <strong>to</strong> live but the steep,deforested slopes of ravines.Like other sources of vulnerability, disasters shine a spotlight oninequality. Rich countries and communities have resources andsystems that can cope (much of Europe and North America have anatural disaster that strikes every year – it is called winter). Poorcountries and communities lack the resources <strong>to</strong> cope with shocks.The hazard may be natural but the risk (hazard x vulnerability) isgenerated by social, economic, and political inequality and injustice.Far more attention needs <strong>to</strong> be paid <strong>to</strong> reducing the vulnerabilityaspect of risk by redistributing voice and <strong>power</strong> <strong>to</strong> poor people,245

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