Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 - PoA-ISS

204
Natural and human-made disasters
Box 8.8 Using the law to fight technological risk in Durban, South Africa
South Durban Community in South Africa is a highly polluted area where 200,000 largely
vulnerable and disadvantaged residents live side by side with heavy industries. In 2002, successful
legal action was taken by the community to prevent the development of a paper incinerator
by Mondi, a paper manufacturing company. This legal case was taken up by the community after
the provincial government granted permission to Mondi to construct an incinerator without
following proper procedures. The Legal Resources Centre lodged an appeal on behalf of the
community in the Durban High Court on 11 October 2002, restraining the Minister of
Agriculture and Environmental Affairs, KwaZulu-Natal Province, from approving the Mondi
incinerator. The minister was interdicted pending the finalization of a judicial review.
The legal recourse was taken on the grounds that government granted an oral exemption
to Mondi from conducting a full environmental impact assessment (EIA). It was argued that
this exemption was invalid, according to statutory requirements, and that the failure to appoint
an independent consultant, conduct a full IEA and examine the necessary alternatives was in
breach of existing legislation. The Legal Resources Centre also pointed out that a proper interpretation
of the EIA showed that sulphur dioxide emissions from Mondi’s incinerator would
exceed World Health Organization (WHO) standards and national guidelines of 1998. This, the
community noted, was against their constitutional right to live in a healthy environment.
The verbal exemption from conducting an EIA given to Mondi was overruled by a high
court judge and the company’s proposal had to be processed again, taking into account the
necessary EIA requirements.
Sources: South Durban Community Environmental Alliance, 2003a, 2003b
planning is the best way of protecting households from these
and other risks. Box 8.9 presents eight ways in which this
can be done.
Box 8.9 Microfinance for disaster risk reduction
It is important that gains made through microfinance are protected from the economic and
human impacts of disaster. Here, eight ways of protecting microfinance clients from disaster risk
are presented:
1 Meet with clients to discuss preparations for, and responses to, natural disasters.
2 Create accessible emergency funds to provide clients with a financial safety net in times of
crisis.
3 Microfinance groups can provide a ready social network for promoting primary healthcare
in order to build resilience pre- and post-disaster.
4 Microfinance coordinators can aid in the building of resilience through encouraging clients
to diversify into disaster-resistant activities.
5 Housing is arguably the most important asset in urban livelihoods. Microfinance initiatives
should consider providing savings or loan products to encourage clients to move to safer
areas and to invest in more durable housing.
6 Insurance products provided by multinational financial institutions to their clients are
typically designed to protect against individual crisis and not crises that affect the entire
portfolio of clients. Some microfinance agencies have begun experimenting with insurance
products for disaster response, in some cases turning to the re-insurance market to
spread aggregate risks.
7 Microfinance coordinators can disseminate information on providers of emergency
services and safe shelter in times of emergency.
8 The social network of the microfinance organization can act as an information conduit for
early warning.
Challenges of building local capacity for risk
reduction
Local potential for disaster risk reduction can only be
realized in supportive social, economic, legislative and political
environments. In a recent study of slum settlements in
six African countries, ActionAid found that a lack of collective
action to reduce risk was a major determinant in shaping
vulnerability and reducing capacity to recover from
flooding. 37
There is also an uneasy tension between the empowering
of local actors to confront local causes of risk and the
offloading of state or private-sector responsibilities.
Decentralization of urban governance has seen many municipalities
struggling with a gap between responsibilities that
have been devolved from central government and the
resources, which have, in many instances, not been made
available. There is a danger that the same flow of responsibility
without resources will result from the increasing
emphasis on local actor involvement in risk reduction.
It is also important not to lose sight of the deeper
historical and structural root causes of disaster risk in the
national and global political economy. Community-based
approaches inherently focus on the concerns of particular
places and are often directed by the most immediate local
development challenges. On the surface, this is reasonable;
but without care, it can mask deeper social and economic
structures and physical processes that are the root causes of
inequality, vulnerability and hazard.
The challenge of bringing together top-down, scientific
and strategic policy-driven risk reduction priorities with
bottom-up, experiential and often tactical priorities of grassroots
actors lies at the heart of all planned interventions for
local capacity-building. Building local capacity is difficult in
contexts where disaster risk reduction is not perceived to be
a priority by local actors. In areas where disasters are infrequent
or have had only a limited impact, it is quite rational
for those on a low income, with little time to spare and
subject to many hazards – from police harassment and street
crime to the threat or reality of homelessness – not to want
to participate in disaster risk reduction initiatives as a priority.
The tension between local and external priorities is
made especially visible, but also difficult to reconcile, when
external actors engage with community actors through
participatory methodologies. This can mean that long-term
risks, including low-frequency, high-impact hazards and lowlevel
chronic hazards, such as air pollution, are not identified
as priorities by local actors and therefore might not be
addressed.
Strategies for reconciling local everyday and external
strategic visions of risk are needed in order to maximize the
potential for local capacity to build resilience to disaster.
Three strategies are to:
Source: Microenterprise Best Practice (undated)