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

about 65 per cent of the world’s economically active population works in industry and
services and a very high proportion of all industry and services are in urban areas. Most
of the world’s largest cities are in the world’s largest economies.
Figure 2.2
The change in the average population size of the world’s 100
largest cities, 1800 to 2000
Population (millions)
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
0.18
0.28
0.73
2.00
6.30
1800 1850 1900 1950 2000
Source: Satterthwaite (2007)
Figure 2.3
Changes in the proportion of GDP for low- and middle-income nations,
1950–2005
%
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
Source: Satterthwaite (2007)
% GDP from industry
and services
% labour force in industry
and services
% level of urbanization
There is a very large deficit in provision for the infrastructure and services that reduce
disaster risk for much of the population in Latin America, Africa and Asia. But much of
the reason for this is institutional failure and governance failure. Although rapid urban
World Disasters Report 2010 – Focus on urban risk
33