Natural Disasters and Development in a Globalizing World

HUMANITARIAN DISASTERS TRIGGERED by natural hazards appear to be growing in severity and frequency of impact. Moving on from insufficient explanations that attribute the disasters only to natural cycles in atmospheric and geophysical phenomena, a consensus has formed around the recognition that disaster events are simultaneously the products of inappropriate development policy and vice versa. In addition to the high losses in local areas due to natural hazard events that have been allowed to lead on to humanitarian disasters because of inappropriate development, there is a real chance that the economic losses caused by natural disasters might be sufficiently large in the near future that they could have an impact on regional, if not the global, economies.

Although human security in the face of so-called natural disasters is a rising political priority, the increased funds for mitigation measures and disaster relief tend to mean a reduced budget for national and international development agencies. In an environment where politicians and aid agencies need to find a balance between direct investment in disaster mitigation and responses to long-term development initiatives, there is a need for clear policy scrutiny based on a critical understanding of the relationship between natural disasters and development in a globalizing world.

The changing conditions experienced as a result of increasing globalization and urbanization require refinements to established understanding and practice in disaster and development. The approaches based on the Marxist interpretation of disaster first put forward in the 1980s have recently been joined by work drawing on gender studies, cultural theory, political ecology, stakeholder analysis, regime theory and structuration theory to help explain the origins of disasters. Therefore, not only has our present era of globalization changed the pathways through which natural hazard becomes humanitarian disaster, but it has also stimulated a growing diversity of approaches to understanding the relationship between disaster and development.

The book is designed to bring together both these agendas for change. It does so by drawing together the work of a group of internationally recognized experts in the field of disasters and development, including academics and practitioners from high- and low-income countries. The contributors look at the disaster–development relationship from three different perspectives. First, there is an examination of global processes and how they might affect disaster risk at the global scale. Second, links are explored between international issues – such as diplomatic relations, the growth of non-governmental organizations, and the health of the international insurance industry – and disaster risks. And third, the interaction of these large-scale forces with local conditions is examined through case study analysis of individual disaster events, from the so-called developed and developing worlds.

This book aims to open academic and policy discussions that link together local disasters and development with the processes and pressures of global change. It has three main objectives. First, to present new perspectives on the theory and practice of disasters and development in an accessible format. Second, to present trends in globalization that require adaptation or new ways of thinking about natural disaster and disaster–development linkages at the local, international and global scales. And third, to look ahead and sketch out priorities for natural disaster planning in the future, especially considering the uncertainty of future risk scenarios under globalization.

The body of this book is divided into five sections and a number of chapters, each drawing lessons for future management and for moving the theoretical debate on disaster and development forward. In the introductory chapter (Part I), those elements of global change of most salience to the disaster–developmen