Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 - PoA-ISS

Mitigating the impacts of disasters
279
Box 12.1 National initiatives to integrate urban disaster risk reduction and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
With international support, national planning for
urban development has begun to integrate disaster
risk reduction and the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs). The following cases are indicative of
such integrated work.
MDG 1: Eradicating extreme poverty and
hunger.
In India, the Self-Employed Women’s Association
(SEWA), a trade union representing low-income
informal-sector women workers, offers its members
a variety of micro-insurance packages. Over ten
years, 2000 women have received US$327,400 in
claims. Following the 2001 Gujarat earthquake,
SEWA provided insurance benefits and microfinance
to regenerate destroyed livelihoods, homes, working
capital and assets. Within two weeks, SEWA’s insurance
team surveyed over 2500 insured members’
claims of damage and asset loss, mainly destruction
of houses.
MDG 2: Universal primary education.
Colombia has linked achieving MDG 2 directly with
seismic vulnerability analysis of a school building
programme in the capital city, Bogotá. This
programme was developed by Proyectos y Diseños
Ltda 6 in April 2000. The programme developed a
risk evaluation methodology that staff in the
Education Ministry were trained to implement.
Primary evaluations were then conducted in all
schools to determine seismic vulnerability. Priorities
among individual schools were subsequently
assigned according to available budgets. In some
cases, more detailed vulnerability analyses and structural
retrofitting studies were conducted.
MDG 3: Promoting gender equality and
empowering women.
In Armenia, the non-governmental organization
(NGO) Women for Development has partnered
other agencies in a national survey for seismic
protection and has worked towards including
seismic protection courses in school curricula. This
has enabled the inclusion of education games and
contributed to a greater acceptance of women’s
participation as specialists in a wide range of disaster
reduction and response activities where men traditionally
dominate, including vulnerability and impact
surveying, academic work, emergency services and
civil protection.
MDG 6: Combating infectious diseases.
Tajikistan has integrated this goal with risk reduction
through the Dushanbe Water Contamination
Response Programme sponsored by the European
Commission’s Humanitarian Aid Department
(ECHO). This programme aims to improve the
access of targeted health facilities to safe and
potable water supply in the capital city, as well as
their disease outbreak response capacity. The
programme directly addresses MDG 6, which deals
with the containment of infectious diseases, by
increasing preparedness and response levels in case
of a possible disaster. It seeks to build community
capacity for self-management of health needs by
improving public awareness in the prevention of
water-borne diseases.
MDG 7: Ensuring environmental
sustainability.
As part of its efforts towards meeting target 11,
which is on slums, UN-Habitat is active in applying
inclusive strategies to support slum upgrading and,
where appropriate, as a mechanism for risk reduction.
In Mozambique, rapid unplanned urbanization
has brought flood-prone land into residential use in
Maputo, a city where more than 70 per cent of the
population live in slums. Here, slum upgrading has
fostered risk reduction. The wider programme
supported training and capacity-building, participatory
land-use planning and physical interventions at
the local level. Local government and community
groups, as well as state ministries, participated. This
inclusive approach was instrumental in leading to the
revision of planning regulations, and a movement
away from dealing with floods through reactive
emergency management, towards a more proactive
and developmental approach.
MDG 8: Developing global partnerships for
development.
In Turkey, in partnership with the World Bank,
ProVention Consortium has been promoting best
practice examples of disaster mitigation and future
cost reductions through measures such as a US$505
million reconstruction loan to Turkey that included
measures to update and enforce building codes.
Poor quality construction was responsible for many
of the lives lost during the 1999 Marmara
earthquake. The reconstruction programme will
introduce better planning for land use (possible links
to MDGs) and requires compulsory insurance for
housing. Emergency response management will also
be upgraded.
Source: ISDR, undated a, undated b; Spaliviero, 2006
reduce the impact of climate variables, such as El Niño
and La Niña;
• encouraging governments to address the problems
created by megacities, the location of settlements in
high-risk areas and other human-made determinants of
disasters;
• encouraging governments to incorporate disaster risk
reduction within national planning processes, including
building codes.
Disaster risk reduction cuts across each of the eight MDGs,
but is not identified as a separate target for action. This has
reduced the visibility of risk reduction to some degree.
However, the importance of integrating risk reduction with
safeguard gains from disaster loss has become increasingly
apparent. A number of international organizations – such as
the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster
Reduction (ISDR), 3 the UK Department for International
Development (DFID) 4 and the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) 5 – have reviewed the ways in which risk
reduction can contribute towards meeting the MDGs.
The ISDR has surveyed disaster risk reduction strategies
that have been designed purposely to contribute to
meeting individual MDG targets. Box 12.1 presents some of
these findings that draw from urban projects and
programmes. In addition to direct contributions towards
achieving individual MDGs, reducing disaster impacts frees
up resources, including overseas development aid.
In 2005, progress towards meeting the MDGs was
reviewed by the independent United Nations Millennium
Project. 7 The resulting report recognizes that disasters are a
serious impediment to meeting the MDGs. It calls for the
mainstreaming of risk reduction strategies within MDGbased
poverty reduction strategies. The report recommends
four pathways for achieving better integration, all of which
have relevance for urban disaster risk reduction:
… disasters are a
serious impediment
to meeting the
MDGs