1. Global Assessment Report for Disaster Risk Reduction 2011
GAR11 is the second biennial Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction produced by UNISDR in coordination with a large number of international organisations, scientific and academic institutions, governments, regional organisations and NGOs.
The first Report (GAR09) was launched by UN SG Ban Ki Moon in Bahrain in May Its been a success. Over 500,000 chapters have been downloaded from the internet up to end of 2010.
Over 30 regional and national presentations were made after the global launch. GAR09 looked at the patterns and causes of disaster risk. While governments and regional organisations agreed with its message the feedback was that the next GAR should give more detailed guidance on what governments can do to reduce risk. That is what GAR11 is all about.

2. About ISDR and DRR

3. ISDR: International Strategy for Disaster Reduction
Successor programme of the IDNDR (International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction, )
GA Res 54/219 and 56/195 establish the secretariat, under the authority of the USG for Humanitarian Affairs, and the IATF-DRR
GA Res A/RES/61/198 transforms the IATF-DR into the Global Platform for DRR, thus including Governments

4. What is Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)?
A conceptual framework consisting of ways and means:
To minimize vulnerabilities and disaster risks.
To avoid (prevention) or to limit (mitigation and preparedness) the adverse impacts of hazards within the broad context of sustainable development.

5. World Conference on Disaster Reduction
Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA)
- Building the resilience of nations and communities to disasters
168 Governments, 78 regional and int’l orgs, and 161 NGOs attended
Integrate disaster risk reduction into policies, plans and programmes of sustainable development and poverty reduction
Recognize risk reduction as both a humanitarian and development issue – in the context of sustainable development
Focus on national and local implementation, with bilateral, multilateral, regional and international cooperation
The HFA focuses in particular on National Implementation with the support through bi-lateral, regional and international cooperation.
Priorities for action :
1. Governance: ensure that disaster risk reduction is a national and local priority with strong institutional basis for implementation (UNDP/BCPR, UN-HABITAT, UNV, ProVention Consortium)
2. Risk identification: identify, assess and monitor disaster risks and enhance early warning (WMO, UNU, EC/JRC)
3. Knowledge: use knowledge , innovation and education to build a culture of safety and resilience at all levels (UNESCO, UNICEF, IFRC)
4. Reducing the underlying risk factors (UNEP, UNCRD, WHO)
5. Strengthen disaster preparedness for effective response (UN/OCHA, WFP)

6. World Conference on Disaster Reduction
Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA)
Three strategic goals:
The integration of disaster risk reduction into sustainable development policies and planning
The development and strengthening of institutions, mechanisms and capacities to build resilience to hazards
The systematic incorporation of risk reduction approaches into the implementation of emergency preparedness, response and recovery programmes
The HFA focuses in particular on National Implementation with the support through bi-lateral, regional and international cooperation.
Priorities for action :
1. Governance: ensure that disaster risk reduction is a national and local priority with strong institutional basis for implementation (UNDP/BCPR, UN-HABITAT, UNV, ProVention Consortium)
2. Risk identification: identify, assess and monitor disaster risks and enhance early warning (WMO, UNU, EC/JRC)
3. Knowledge: use knowledge , innovation and education to build a culture of safety and resilience at all levels (UNESCO, UNICEF, IFRC)
4. Reducing the underlying risk factors (UNEP, UNCRD, WHO)
5. Strengthen disaster preparedness for effective response (UN/OCHA, WFP)

7. World Conference on Disaster Reduction
Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA)
Five priorities for action:
Governance: ensure that disaster risk reduction is a national and local priority with strong institutional basis for implementation
Risk identification: identify, assess and monitor disaster risks and enhance early warning
Knowledge: use knowledge, innovation and education to build a culture of safety and resilience at all levels
Reducing the underlying risk factors in various sectors (environment, health, construction, etc.)
Strengthen disaster preparedness for effective response
The HFA focuses in particular on National Implementation with the support through bi-lateral, regional and international cooperation.
Priorities for action :
1. Governance: ensure that disaster risk reduction is a national and local priority with strong institutional basis for implementation (UNDP/BCPR, UN-HABITAT, UNV, ProVention Consortium)
2. Risk identification: identify, assess and monitor disaster risks and enhance early warning (WMO, UNU, EC/JRC)
3. Knowledge: use knowledge , innovation and education to build a culture of safety and resilience at all levels (UNESCO, UNICEF, IFRC)
4. Reducing the underlying risk factors (UNEP, UNCRD, WHO)
5. Strengthen disaster preparedness for effective response (UN/OCHA, WFP)

8. Build a disaster risk reduction
movement – ISDR system
Our objective: To reduce disaster risk, worldwide, focussing on nations and communities
The instrument: Hyogo Framework for Action
The vehicle: ISDR system - ‘movement ’
The HFA focuses in particular on National Implementation with the support through bi-lateral, regional and international cooperation.
Priorities for action :
1. Governance: ensure that disaster risk reduction is a national and local priority with strong institutional basis for implementation (UNDP/BCPR, UN-HABITAT, UNV, ProVention Consortium)
2. Risk identification: identify, assess and monitor disaster risks and enhance early warning (WMO, UNU, EC/JRC)
3. Knowledge: use knowledge , innovation and education to build a culture of safety and resilience at all levels (UNESCO, UNICEF, IFRC)
4. Reducing the underlying risk factors (UNEP, UNCRD, WHO)
5. Strengthen disaster preparedness for effective response (UN/OCHA, WFP)

9. About the GAR

10. Global Assessment Reports (GAR)
Both a product and process – for evidence generation and policy engagement
Engaging partners from governments, UN agencies, international organisations, civil society organisation, academic institutions and many more since 2007
Two iterations, in 2009 and 2011
Both launched by UN Secretary General and received highest level of attention
Informed the 2nd and 3rd session of the Global Platform
Brief history of GAR

11. Global Assessment Report (GAR)
More than 500,000 chapter down loads
More than 10,000 copies distributed
More than 130 governments participated in reviewing their progress in DRR
More than 25 countries developed national disaster loss databases
More than 30 organizations participated in research and analysis
engagement

12. GAR 2009: Risk and poverty in a changing climate
Focused on the identification of drivers of risk and what needs doing
Increase our understanding of the causal factors of risk and of it’s consequences for human and economic development
Propose policy initiatives to address gaps and challenges

13. GAR 2011: Revealing Risk, Redefining Development
Focused on drivers of risk reduction and on how to address the challenges in doing so
Provided policy recommendations for governments to adapt and use public investment planning, social protection and other development instruments to upscale risk reduction
Revealed some new and key aspects of disaster risk and trends in risk reduction

14. GAR 2009 Main Findings

15. This is the presentation of the United Nations 2009 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction, titled, Risk and Poverty in a Changing Climate.

16. Disaster risk is intensively concentrated
The report has identified two different but inter-related patterns and trends in disaster risk.
Firstly, many attributes of risk, such as mortality and direct economic loss, are intensively concentrated in a very small portion of the earth’s surface and manifest infrequently in a very small-number of mega disasters. For example, between 1975 and 2008, 78.2% of disaster mortality was concentrated in only 23 events.
This intensive concentration of risk can be visualised in both absolute and relative terms. Large countries, such as China India, Bangladesh and Indonesia have the most population at risk.
But, small island developing states (SIDS), such as Dominica and Vanuatu, and other smaller countries have the largest proportion of their population and economies at risk.
Overall, the most high risk countries are those such as Myanmar and Bangladesh that have high absolute and relative risk

17. it’s unevenly distributed…..
22.5 million exposed per year
GDPcap. US$31,267
HDI =0.953
Mortality ratio = 1
16 million exposed per year
GDP cap. US$5,137
HDI = 0.771
Mortality ratio = 17
These concentrations of risk, however, are not evenly spread. Developing countries concentrate a hugely disproportionate share of the risk. The map shows cyclone mortality risk in Japan and Philippines. In Japan, approximately 22.5 million people are exposed annually, compared to 16 million people in the Philippines. However, the estimated annual death toll from cyclones in the Philippines is almost 17 times greater than that of Japan.
Tropical cyclone mortality risk in low-income countries is approximately 200 times higher than in OECD countries, for similar numbers exposed.
While absolute economic loss is concentrated in developed countries, poorer countries experience higher losses in relation to the size of their economies. In the case of floods, for example, South Asia experiences approximately 15 times more economic losses with respect to the size of its GDP, than the OECD countries.

18. …… is increasing globally
Global disaster risk increased between 1990 and 2007, even assuming that hazard levels were constant. In the case of floods, mortality risk increased by 13% from 1990 to Over the same period flood economic loss risk increased by 35%. Given that climate change and other drivers are increasing hazard these are very conservative estimates.
These increases are due to rapid growth in the people and economic assets concentrated in hazard prone areas. The number of people exposed to floods increased by 28% in this period, while exposed GDP increased by 98%. Most flood risk is concentrated in countries, such as China and India, which had increased their GDP by 420% and 185% respectively.
Vulnerability, however, declined: by 11% in the case of mortality and by 32% in the case of economic loss, reflecting improved development conditions. But this decline was insufficient to compensate for the increase in exposure. .

19. and….. hits small countries hardest.
These graphs show that, in the case of small islands, such as Samoa and St. Lucia, economic development may be set back by decades due to disaster impacts. In contrast, the impact of major disasters on high-income countries such as the USA is imperceptible, even with huge economic losses such as the US$ 125 billion lost in Hurricane Katrina in Similarly, there is no marked effect in large low-income countries such as India.
Countries with small and vulnerable economies, have the highest ratio of economic loss to capital stock and often have very low national savings, which constrains their capacity to absorb impacts and recover.
SIDS and LLDCs together comprise about two thirds of the countries very high, economic vulnerability to disasters, as measured by the above variables. They also comprise about two thirds of all countries with extreme limitations to benefit from international trade, for example a very low participation in world export markets and low export diversification.

20. Global risk is driven by poverty and weak governance
This graph shows the differences between the numbers exposed to earthquakes and the expected mortality risk for groups of countries with different incomes. While exposure is distributed across all income classes, including high income countries, almost 85% of mortality risk is concentrated in lower-middle income countries.
This concentration of risk in lower-middle income countries, highlights that while wealthy countries tend to be less risk-prone than poorer countries economic development must be accompanied by the strengthening of governance capacities, such as the quality of institutions, transparency and accountability if disaster risk is to be reduced.
Disaster risk increases if the exposure of people and assets to natural hazards increases faster than countries can strengthen their risk-reducing capacities. Well-governed countries with higher human development indicators generally have lower levels of risk than countries with weaker governance. While levels of hazard and exposure are usually locked in, if vulnerability is addressed it is possible to reduce risk.

21. Risk is also extensively spread …..
The second risk pattern becomes visible when risk is viewed at the local level.
As the right hand map of Sri Lanka show, 90% of the mortality and 86% of the direct economic loss is concentrated intensively in quite a small area, mainly affected by the 2004 tsunami. These are the losses that make news headlines and capture the attention of the international community.
In contrast, as the left hand map shows, 56% of the low-intensity damages to housing, local infrastructure, crops and livestock, are extensively spread over 9,780 loss reports. These losses are invisible globally.
Across 12 Asian and Latin American (*) countries, there are an average of 9 such loss reports per day and more than 82% of the local governments report losses, meaning that disaster loss is far more widespread than was previously thought.
(Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Iran, India (States of Orissa and Tamil Nadu), Mexico, Nepal, Peru, Sri Lanka and Venezuela)

22. ………….and increasing rapidly
Across the 12 countries, the number of weather related reports has more than doubled since 1980, and housing damage has quintupled. The rise in both reports and losses is particularly steep since 1990 and more and more areas are reporting losses.
This means that more hazard events are affecting wider areas and there is increasing exposure of assets such as housing to those events. While the sample is not globally representative, there is no reason to believe that these countries are exceptions to a global trend.
Critically, about 97% of these local level loss reports are weather-related and the number of loss reports associated with flooding and heavy rains is increasing faster than all other hazard types.

23. ….. feeds back into poverty
As the map shows more than 1.9 million houses were damaged in Mexico since 1980, 72% of these in recurrent weather related events. Across the 12 countries, 34% of the economic cost of disasters in the housing sector was associated with such low-intensity loss reports, as well as 57% of the damage to schools, 65% of the damage to hospitals and 89% of the damage to roads.
These losses disproportionately affect poor communities. In Mexico, the most socially and economically deprived municipalities tended to lose the highest proportion of their housing stock in disasters, a finding echoed in other countries such as India and Sri Lanka.
Furthermore, disasters lead to reduced income and consumption, particularly in the poorest households and can increase poverty and reduce human development.
Disaster impacts produce other poverty outcomes as well. The empirical evidence shows that school enrolment tends to fall and children may grow at a slower rate due to nutritional shortfalls following disasters. These outcomes may be long-term and recovery slow or difficult, particularly in rural areas, where poor households often lack the assets necessary to buffer disaster losses and are rarely covered by insurance or social protection.

24. driven by…….. deficient urban and local governance
The report has identified three drivers that underlie these risk patterns. The first is deficient urban and local governance.
Disaster risk is increasingly urban. By 2010 it is projected that 73% of the world’s urban population and most of its largest cities will be in developing countries.
Many city governments have not been able to provide safe land for housing, adequate infrastructure and services for their poorer citizens and a planning and regulatory framework to manage the associated risks. As a result, urban growth in developing countries has been largely absorbed through the expansion of informal settlements. Approximately one billion people worldwide live in these settlements and numbers are growing by approximately 25 million per year. The expansion of informal settlements is closely associated with rapidly increasing weather-related losses in urban areas. Urbanisation generates flood hazard due to increasing peak run-off during storms, the settlement of low-lying areas and a chronic underinvestment in drainage.
This map shows flood loss reports in the city of Cali, Colombia since the 1950s. The centrifugal expansion of reported floods has mirrored the expansion of informal settlements in the city.

25. ...vulnerable rural livelihoods
Another underlying risk driver is livelihood vulnerability in rural areas. Approximately 75% of the people living below the international poverty line (US$ 1.25 per day) live and work in rural areas including 268 million in sub-Saharan Africa; In sub-Saharan Africa, during the 2001–2003 drought, an estimated 206 million people, or 32% of the region’s population, were undernourished. Rural poverty is associated with unequal land distribution, a lack of access to improved seeds, irrigation technology and other inputs, the lack of economic diversification, weak markets and trade barriers.
As the map shows large parts of sub-Saharan Africa are exposed to drought, as well as to floods and other hazards. Poor rural livelihoods, dependent on rain-fed agriculture and on a single main harvest for annual food and income, are highly vulnerable to weather fluctuations and hazards, which can lead to crop or livestock loss.
Poor and indebted households have little or no surplus capacity to absorb these losses and to recover. Resilience is further undermined by the impacts of other hazards such as conflict and HIV/AIDS, in which case disaster loss can lead to massive mortality.

26. and ... declining ecosystem services
The Millennium Assessment found that the supply of approximately 60% of the ecosystem services were in decline, while consumption of more than 80% of the services was found to be increasing. In other words, the flow of most ecosystem services is increasing at the same time as the total stock is decreasing.
It was also identified that ecosystems have been modified to increase provisioning services, while regulating ecosystem services, have declined. Mangroves have been destroyed to create shrimp ponds, increasing storm surge hazard, wetlands have been drained increasing flood hazard, deforestation has increased landslide hazard.
The above maps show how in Peru, the opening of new roads down the eastern slopes of the Andes and into the central jungle in order to extend the agricultural frontier has led to a notable increase in the number of reported landslide disasters in that region since the 1980s, easily visible in dark brown on the map.

27. ……magnified by climate change
The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report has confirmed that weather-related hazard is being altered significantly by climate change. For example, compared with the period before 1985 there has been a significant increase in the number of strong Category 4 and 5 cyclones, particularly in years with warm sea surface temperatures.
Given that 97% of the documented local-level loss reports are weather-related, emerging disaster risk in developing countries is highly sensitive to any increase in hazard due to climate change. Changes in climate means also undermine the resilience of poorer countries and their citizens, through, for example, decreases in agricultural productivity, water and energy stress, and increasing disease vectors.
Crucially this combination of increasing hazard and decreasing resilience means that climate change not only magnifies disaster risk, it magnifies the highly uneven distribution of risk: skewing disaster impacts even further towards poor communities in developing countries. For example, it is estimated that 1.9% of the GDP of Madagascar is annually at risk from Category 3 cyclones. If these were to increase to Category 4 storms this would increase to 3.2%.

28. Mixed progress in reducing risk
These patterns and trends in disaster risk reflect risk reduction progress at the country level. In general, high-income countries report better progress across each of the HFA priorities for action compared to middle and low-income countries.
The graph indicates that countries are making significant progress to strengthen capacities, institutional systems and legislation for disaster preparedness and response. Some lower-income countries, such as Bangladesh and Cuba, have already made dramatic strides in reducing mortality risk in the face of tropical cyclones and floods, which is sensitive to improvements in early warning, preparedness and response. For example, despite being hit by five successive hurricanes in 2008, only 7 deaths were reported in Cuba.
In contrast, countries report little progress in integrating disaster risk reduction considerations into social, economic, urban, environmental and infrastructural planning and development. The governance arrangements for disaster risk reduction in these countries do not facilitate the integration of risk considerations into development. Often, the organisations responsible for disaster risk reduction lack the political authority and the technical capacity to influence development sectors.

29. the key message In order to:
Reduce disaster risk and achieving the Hyogo Framework of Action
Adapt to climate change
Achieve the Millennium Development Goals Goals
Address the underlying risk drivers:
poor urban governance;
ecosystem decline;
vulnerable rural livelihoods
The key message of this report is that disaster risk will only be reduced and the HFA achieved if countries successfully address the underlying drivers of risk, such as poor urban governance, ecosystem decline and vulnerable rural livelihoods. If these drivers are not addressed, climate change will lead to dramatic increases in disaster risk and associated poverty outcomes in developing countries.
Addressing these drivers is also key to reducing poverty and achieving the Millenium Development Goals. Increasing disaster loss concentrated in poor communities in developing countries continually erodes development gains.
But furthermore, developing countries will only be able to adapt to climate change if these drivers are addressed. Climate change cannot be blamed for flood prone informal settlements with non-existent or inadequate drainage, for the decline of flood regulation due to the drainage of wetlands or for rural households in drought prone areas that lack access to irrigation technology. It is impossible to adapt development that is not there. Adaptation, therefore also means addressing these underlying risk drivers.
Given the urgency posed by climate change, decisive action needs to be taken now.

30. GAR 2011 Main Findings

31. Growing losses – insignificant investment in disaster risk management
When these losses are monetized they are huge. For example, excluding losses in the agricultural sector and downstream impacts on poverty all Mexican governments since 1982 have had to deal with losses of between US$10 and 20 billion.
Given the growing scale of these losses, DRM should be high on the political agenda. But few governments give the same priority to DRR as in dealing with unemployment or fiscal stability. The HFA progress review highlights that few countries are able to quantify their investments in disaster risk reduction – and in those that do the investment is far smaller than the losses being incurred. And it is clear that the strategy we have been pursuing up to now of addressing risk through stand-alone DRR projects is only nibbling at the edges of the problem
Governments, however, have a choice. They can continue to face huge and growing losses. Or they can decide to invest today for a safer tomorrow redefining development to reduce risk. What this report is about is how to identify those choices with eyes wide open, how to use development instruments to scale up and make quick progress and how to organise risk governance to do so.
Disaster losses by Presidential period Mexico 1982 – 2009
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development

32. Increased exposure of people and economic activities to weather-related hazards
Globally, GAR11 highlights a number of key trends in disaster risk.
Firstly, there is a net movement of people and economic activities to areas prone to floods and tropical cyclones.
The world’s population increased by 87 percent from 1970 to 2010 (from 3.7 to 6.9 billion). In contrast, the proportion of the population living in flood- prone river basins increased by 114 percent and that on cyclone exposed coastlines by 192 percent. Most of this increase has occurred in low and lower-middle income countries.
Similarly, the proportion of the world’s GDP exposed to tropical cyclones increased from 3.6 percent in the 1970s to 4.3 percent in the 2000s.
Increasing exposure is one of the drivers of increasing disaster risk and shows that the economic incentives for location is many hazard prone areas continue to outweigh the perceived disaster risks.
Population exposed to tropical cyclones, China coast section
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development

33. Falling mortality – rising economic loss risk
Cyclone mortality risk
Flood economic loss risk
GAR11 has some good news. Globally, mortality risk to floods and tropical cyclones is now going down because vulnerability reduction is outpacing increases in exposure. For example, mortality risk to tropical cyclones in East Asia and the Pacific, which concentrates about 44% of the people exposed per year, is now 50% lower than in 1980 in absolute terms and a third lower per capita. Along with improving development conditions have come enhancements in disaster management, such as early warning, preparedness and response that lead to dramatically reduced mortality when hazards strike.
In contrast, however, economic loss risk is continuing to increase particularly in wealthier countries. In 2010, the economic loss risk to floods in the OECD, which concentrates about 53% of the global GDP exposed per year, is about 170% more than in Economic loss risk in the OECD is rising faster than GDP per capita. meaning that the risk of losing wealth in weather-related disasters is increasing faster than that wealth is being created.
This does not mean that countries are not reducing their vulnerability – they are. But these improvements are not happening fast or deep enough to compensate for increasing exposure.
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development

34. A real-time window on investment in risk
In any one place it may be decades before an intensive disaster happens. But damage from high-frequency but low-severity disasters, what we call extensive risk in the GAR occur everywhere all the time, as the map of Indonesia shows, and provides a real-time window on how investment in development becomes investment in risk when not accompanied by vulnerability reduction.
GAR11 accesses new data from south-east Asia, southern Africa and the Middle East, which confirm the trends already profiled in GAR09. Damage to schools and health facilities, for example, across the 21 country sample examined in the report has increased more than 10 fold in the last 20 years.
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development

35. Synchronic failures and sequential crisis ?
Risk – the future.
Synchronic failures and sequential crisis ?
Populations and economies exposed to tsunamis
As the Japan tsunami showed, even highly developed societies are not adapted to very low probability but extremely severe hazards. In these cases just being exposed means being at risk and the risks are very difficult to reduce. As the above graphs from GAR09 showed, Japan has the second largest population exposed to tsunami and the largest GDP exposure.
While such hazards have always occured, new and difficult to model vulnerabilities are emerging, associated with the dependency of modern societies on increasingly inter-related systems: power, telecommunications, finance, air transport and others.
As economies depend more and more on such systems the future is likely to be characterised not only by traditional disasters but by synchronic failures where different systems break-down simultaneously, multiplying the impacts and by sequential crisis, where one disaster triggers another. The Japan disaster in March 2011 had characteristics of both.
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development

36. Mixed progress towards achieving the HFA
In the HFA Progress Review there has been a reported improvement across all HFA Priority Areas since the previous reporting period from But countries are continuing to report markedly less progress against HFA Priority Area 4 – addressing the underlying risk drivers. Other areas of weakness are in public awareness of risks (Priority Area of 3) and on integrating gender considerations, where little or no progress has been made since 2009.
In contrast countries are making good progress in strengthening their capacities in disaster preparedness and response and in developing the institutional arrangements and legislation necessary to underpin it. While much needs to be done to further strengthen disaster management, particularly in early warning, the good progress reported supports the trend of reducing weather related mortality risk.
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development

37. Low investment in vulnerability reduction
In particular, low income countries are not making the necessary investments in risk reduction nor are effectively using development instruments to do so, again meaning that investment in development is often investment in risk.
For example, less than 15 percent of low income countries report significant achievement in using urban and land-use planning to manage disaster risk.
Only 46 percent of low-income countries reported investments in drainage infrastructure in flood-prone areas and only 31 percent took measures to counter landslide risk or to provide safe land for low-income households and communities. 
And countries also report that dedicated budget allocations to local government remain the exception and not the norm.
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development

38. Systematically account for disaster losses
One reason why government DRM investment is so small is that most of the losses, particularly those associated with extensive risk, are not systematically accounted for are mainly absorbed by low-income households and do not provide a political incentive to invest in DRM. Unless a country can calculate the cost of these losses, it is unlikely to be able to justify significant investments in DRM in the national budget.
Countries collect statistics on demography, employment, economic activity and many other development indicators to orient economic and other public policies, so why not disaster loss. These two maps show the number of educational facilities and roads damaged over the last 20 years in South America. Knowing the value of how much public infrastructure and assets are being lost in disasters is the first step towards taking ownership over and responsibility for risk.
Number of education facilities damaged ( ) Kilometers of road damaged ( )
per province (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, Venezuela)
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development

39. What is destroyed and by what type of disaster?
Intense and strong but rare disasters
Weak and extensive but common disasters
Every school or health facility that is damaged in a disaster was once upon a time a public investment project.
All governments are responsible for a stock of public assets. These include schools, health facilities, roads and infrastructure. At the same time they are often the insurers of last resort for the houses and assets of low-income households and communities. Unfortunately, much public investment does not increase a countries stock of development assets – it increases its stock of risks and liabilities.
GAR11 has looked in detail at nationally reported disaster losses 21 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Since 1989, there were 63,667 schools and 4,873 health facilities damaged or destroyed, 73,000 kilometres of roads damaged, and 3,605 municipal water systems, 4,400 sewer systems and 6,980 power installations were damaged and destroyed.
Of these losses, 46 percent of the schools, 54 percent of the health facilities, 80 percent of the roads and more than 90 percent of the water, sewer and power installations were damaged or destroyed in frequently occurring extensive disaster.
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development

40. Typhoon severity, and causes of disasters
The stronger the typhoon, the less effective vulnerability reduction is
Vulnerability
Exposure
With this information governments can identify different risk strata and choose the most effective strategies for disaster risk management.
Governments cannot influence the frequency and severity of natural hazards. And there is little that they can do in the short-term to influence exposure. Where people live and work is locked in place by strategic investments in infrastructure and by attachment to place. So the only way goverments can address disaster risk is by reducing vulnerability.
But different strata of risk have varying proportions of hazard exposure and vulnerability. For example, the risk associated with Category 1 cyclones is largely explained by vulnerability but the risk associated with Category 4 cyclones is heavily influenced by exposure.
Risk reduction therefore is more effective in the case of the more extensive risks and becomes increasingly less effective as the risk becomes more intensive. This is often reflected in codes – for example, requiring buildings to withstand a Category 3 cyclones or a once in 450 year earthquake.
Stronger typhoons
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development

41. Use public investment planning
“Prevention is better than cure”
Planning is better than relocation or retrofitting
In the case of the risk strata that governments have to reduce prevention is better than cure. Using land-use management and planning and building improvement to avoid risk construction in the first place has far better benefit to cost ratios than correcting risk through measures such as relocation or retrofitting.
Public investment typically represents 3 – 15 % of GDP. Public investment planning, therefore, provides a vehicle to scale up risk reduction efforts. Ensuring that public investments are well located and well built can lead to a rapid and short term reduction in the number of risk prone schools, health facilities, roads etc.
A number of countries, such as Peru and Costa Rica, have now included disaster risk in their criteria for the evaluation of public investment. For example, Peru programmed US$10 billion in 2008 through its National System for Public Investment (SNIP). Over a decade this would make an enormous difference to whether risk goes up or down particularly for the low income households and communities for whom public investment is so critical.
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development

42. corrective investments
… be selective in
corrective investments
Targeted investment in a few infrastructure projects yields more benefits
The sharper a knife the better it cuts and the fact that risk is concentrated provides another opportunity for risk reduction. While corrective risk management is less cost-effective than improved planning and building – the benefit to cost ratio of corrective risk management increases when it is focused on the most vulnerable part of a portfolio of public buildings.
This implies that public investments planning needs to be complemented by selective investments to reduce risk in the most high-risk and critical part of a portfolio – for example the most vulnerable schools and hospitals.
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development

43. Protect the most vulnerable
Employment Guarantee Programmes
Conditional Cash Transfers
As GAR09 highlighted disasters disproportionately affect the poor and make them poorer. Stopping disaster affected or risk prone housholds sliding into poverty is therefore also critical to reduce disaster impacts
Countries from Chile to India have shown that mechanisms designed to address structural poverty like conditional cash transfers and temporary employment programmes, if carefully adapted, can be used to stop not only disaster affected but also disaster prone households from sliding into poverty by providing a buffer. These programmes reach out to millions of households.
For example, after the 2010 Chile earthquake and tsunami, the Chilean Government extended payments from the country’s social assistance programmes, Chile Solidario and Programa Puente, to households affected by the February 2010 earthquake, whether they were structurally poor or not.
Like public investment planning, using these instruments is a way of scaling up disaster risk reduction
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development

44. Reform risk governance
But for all the above to take place risk governance needs to be reformed.
Firstly at the central government level responsiblity for DRM needs to be located in a ministry or department, preferably with planning oversight and some fiscal responsibility, that can provide political authority and policy coherence across sectors. Emergency management organisations can rarely play that role.
Secondly, the decentralisation of responsibilties to local governments needs to be accompanied by a decentralisation of capacities and resources – otherwise it may become an obstable to effective DRM. Decentralisation should be incremental and approaches such as twinning may facilitate capacity development.
Thirdly, DRM will only be effective when it is carried out in real partnership with disaster prone households and communities and their organisations. This is key to cost-effectiveness, sustainability, citizenship and social cohesion. There are a growing number of positive examples of such partnerships. In many countries this however implies a change in the cuture of public administration. The challenge is not community participation – it is government participation in the planning and implementation of community and local DRM.
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development
2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development