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

that the needs and priorities of those most at risk from disaster are addressed. But large
development assistance agencies frequently do not know how to support communitylevel
organizations – indeed, often they never talk to them; they were set up to channel
large sums to national governments, not to support the myriad community and local
government initiatives that can reduce disaster risk and that need modest external
support.
Where city and municipal governments have sufficient capacity, focus on their lowincome
households and have good relations with their citizens, the possibilities for
disaster risk reduction are greatly enhanced. These cities and municipalities provide
us with the evidence that an urbanizing world need not ‘urbanize’ disaster risks. Most
disaster risk reduction is within their conventional urban management roles – for
instance, in land-use management, in strategic urban planning and in setting and
enforcing regulations for land use, buildings and infrastructure. So it is the competence
and capacity of city and municipal governments to work with and support their lowincome
populations that defines whether urbanization is associated with disaster risk.
It is down to the governments of high-income nations to agree to the greenhouse gas
emission reductions that are needed to avoid ‘dangerous climate change’; of course, this
depends too on low-carbon development paths for successful low- and middle-income
nations but their governments will not agree to these unless high-income nations demonstrate
their commitments. And, again, it is down to the competence and capacity of
city and municipal governments to work with and support their low-income populations
that will define whether the climate change impacts that cannot be avoided do
actually result in urban disasters.
This report has enough examples of good practice from low- and middle-income
nations to show that urban disaster risk reduction is possible but these are still the exceptions.
Good local land-use management supported by good local risk assessments can
transform urban plans into disaster reduction plans as unsafe sites are avoided or made
safe. Good upgrading programmes for informal settlements that are well informed in
risk reduction measures can dramatically reduce disaster risk. A framework of support
from higher levels of government and international agencies is required. Learning networks
need to be nurtured for city authorities, urban professionals and citizen groups.
Overall, this needs a sea-change in the preparedness and capacity of most bilateral aid
agencies to work in urban areas with urban organizations and local authorities.
This chapter, including Box 1.1, was written by David Satterthwaite, Senior Fellow, International
Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Box 1.2 was written by
Kathie Klarreich, a freelance journalist and Haiti specialist.
World Disasters Report 2010 – Focus on urban risk
27