World Disasters Report 2010 - International Federation of Red Cross ...

The programme helps communities to identify
potential risks and hazards in their villages
by establishing community disaster management
committees and disaster response teams,
which are trained in disaster risk reduction issues
and disaster response skills. It also supports
communities with mitigation activities,
Photo opposite page:
Nairobi, Kenya: A girl
empties the contents
of her bucket into a
small stream that runs
through Kibera, one
of Africa’s largest
slums. With more than
600,000 people living
within one square
mile, Kibera’s lack
of basic sanitation
facilities makes its
population vulnerable
to a wide range of
infectious diseases.
© Victor Lacken/IFRC
150
contingency funds and disaster drills and
works to improve their awareness of disaster
risk reduction issues. In addition to schools and
communities, the programme works closely
with local government and civil society organizations
to strengthen government disaster
management capacity.��
Disaster risk reduction and urban development
Much disaster risk reduction is implemented as part of local governments’ conventional
responsibility to provide or improve infrastructure and services, and support
improvements in housing. Perhaps the most important of these are programmes to
upgrade slums, which improve the quality of housing and the provision of housingrelated
infrastructure and services (including water, sanitation and drainage) to settlements
that are considered (or officially designated) as slums, including those that
developed illegally. In cases where these programmes are done well and in consultation
with the inhabitants, they can transform the quality of low-income neighbourhoods
and reduce or remove disaster risks. Upgrading programmes have been carried out for
40 years, and in countries such as Argentina, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Egypt,
Indonesia, Morocco and Thailand, they have reached a significant proportion of the
urban population, reducing slum incidence in the best cases by nearly 50 per cent.
How well-governed a city is, is also shown in the way its government responds to
disasters. In Tegucigalpa, four years after Hurricane Mitch, bridges linking poor areas
to the city centre had still not been rebuilt. In Caracas, eight months after the floods
and landslides of 1999, many poor city dwellers were still living in emergency shelters
in very difficult conditions. At that time, the government was criticized for prioritizing
actions that benefited certain economic interests (rebuilding roads and economic
infrastructure) at the expense of addressing social issues. Again, the importance for risk
reduction of good relations between local governments and their lower-income citizens
is illustrated.
City and municipal governments are often among the main providers of healthcare
and emergency services. The quality of these services and the extent of their coverage
will obviously influence their effectiveness in disaster response. In well-governed cities,
such services are also active in promoting disaster risk reduction and, where needed,
in making early warning systems work. However, for much of the urban population
in low- and middle-income nations, especially those living in informal settlements,
there is no public healthcare or emergency service, or if there is, it is of poor quality
and difficult to access. Ironically, it may be that private healthcare is more important