A global report from a human vulnerability point of view, seeking to encourage Governments to take measures to reduce risks from natural disasters, is scheduled for publication at the end of 2001 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Speaking to the Chronicle in a telephone interview, Yasemin Aysan, Acting Head of the UNDP Disaster Reduction and Recovery Programme, which is based in Geneva, said that some Member States might become apprehensive about seeming to put too much focus on managing disaster problems, but emphasized that the report was basically an advocacy tool to promote disaster risk reduction. Thus, the highlight would not be on weaknesses but rather on what nations have done to reduce the risks.

As in the case of an earthquake in a remote desert area, Ms. Aysan points out that in that often quoted situation, there was no disaster per se. A disaster consists of two components: the threat or the event itself, and something which is vulnerable. "So, our question is, where does the weakness come from?"

The answer to why there is so much loss of lives, some say, lies in poor law enforcement, especially when it comes to building codes in urban areas. Editorials written after the earthquake that hit Izmit, Turkey in August 1999 could easily be reprinted substituting El Salvador or India for Turkey after those two countries were hit by devastating earthquakes just weeks after the year 2001 commenced. The message was: the technology was there, the laws were in place, but enforcement was deficient. According to the World Bank, there are about 450 cities worldwide with a population of more than 1 million inhabitants; of these, 50 have a population greater than 3.5 million and 25 more than 8 million. Worse, about half of these mega-cities in developing countries are situated along major earthquake belts or tropical cyclone tracks. Thus, the average number of victims in developing countries is 150 times higher during disasters than in developed countries, and the economic loss as a percentage of gross national product is 20 times greater. The risk is compounded by migration. Poor migrants build houses or shacks from whatever materials they can find in high risk places.

Despite the sobering statistics, some countries that are constantly tested because they are geographically disaster-prone, such as China and Bangladesh, are able to do quite well in terms of disaster management, according to Ms. Aysan, who is a 20-year veteran on the subject.

There are two keys, she said, for a disaster-prone country to be more effective in disaster management.
Firstly, they need to have a basic warning system and, more crucially, that the public heed those warnings. It happens that when disasters do not happen frequently, people do not want to leave. "The awareness of risks is higher in coastal areas where they are consistently affected and far lower in earthquake areas because the chance that an earthquake will hit the same place twice in somebody's lifetime is very, very small."

Secondly is having legislation, especially better land use planning and enforcement in urban areas. Better building quality, said Ms. Aysan, means having technological knowledge and extra funds. Most important is enforcing these laws, but she also acknowledged that when it came to some places, like Bangladesh coastal areas, the dwellers are very poor and are illegal occupants. Officially, they do not even exist in these areas.

Another major problem for disaster management is that in every country it has to compete with other development issues in very much the same way. The DRRP office has to compete for attention among other development programmes. However, she does not think anyone can be blamed for these conditions. "Take, for instance, India which had drought problems in the earthquake affected areas throughout the year. People don't think about earthquakes because when was the last time it hit? The risk is forgotten vis-à-vis the risk people have to face every day", Ms. Aysan said.

That is a problem she hopes the World Disaster Vulnerability Report will help mitigate, because the issue of risk management lies, in a way, in the lack of linking disasters and their impact on development. The Report, which targets decision makers and the development constituency, will help shed some light on the problem. DRRP, among others, is working in cooperation with the United Nations Environment Programme's Global Resources Information Database on data collection. The first report will use simple indexing. Since the data is related to human development indicators, it could be expected that if overall development is lacking in a country, the hazardous element will make vulnerability risks much higher.

Unlike other indicators, Ms. Aysan is leaning towards not ranking the countries in the Vulnerability Report initially because of its possible negative connotation. What UNDP plans to do instead is to highlight developing indicators which show national efforts that go into reducing the vulnerability, such as public awareness programmes, legislations and national management systems that are in place. "So, the question is, where are they at so there will be the motivation to improve?"