Disasters and Development

Since the Disasters and Development Group was started in late 2004, we have held the inaugural meeting (on the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster) at University of Greenwich (April 2005), a large meeting on disasters and the media at the DSA annual conference (September 2006), and a series of four meetings at the House of Commons and DFID on the linkages between disasters and development (October – December 2006). These were in partnership with ODI, and there are reports of them available on the ODI website.

We are writing to bring you up to date on the activities and proposed plans of the group. Having started the group with a meeting of a provisional steering group in early 2005, we have not kept in frequent contact with the mailing list and those who indicated an interest in participating in the group. There are over 60 people on the mailing list who have expressed an interest in the group.

This has not been a deliberate attempt to be exclusive. In fact from the initial meeting of the group we have fulfilled some of the key priorities identified then (notably the media, and maintaining a policy level oversight of the connections between disasters and development). In addition and on behalf of the Study Group, we became alternate members of the BOND Disaster Risk Reduction group, and have attended and facilitated meetings for it over the past few years. We also spent days and days of our time planning and negotiating a number of events on disasters and the media that were recommended by the meeting at the DSA annual conference in 2006. These have not worked out, although it did lead to further co-operation with the British Red Cross on the role of the media in disaster coverage.

Our main limitation has been that pursuing the activities on behalf of the group has reduced the time we perhaps should have spent on keeping in contact with those who expressed an interest, and in maintaining a proper committee or steering group. This is mainly because we have each had enormous pressures of teaching and travel. This could be resolved by involvement of a larger group of supporters in a committee or steering group. So we are writing now to see if there is enough interest – in the form of volunteers! – who are willing to share the load.

Each of us still has an enormous burden of teaching and travel for work, and so our own ability to commit resources to the group remains limited. We very strongly prefer that the group continues, but it does require more people to be involved.

We are still keen to pursue the idea of activities on how the media portray disasters, since this seems to be a major problem in shifting the agenda away from emergency response and in the direction of prevention and mitigation in the wider context of disaster risk reduction. We still believe that the imperative for strategic and structural reduction of hazards, disasters and risks exists and that, in fact, disaster threats are increasing and not decreasing.

If you share our desire to see the Disasters and Development Study Group continue and thrive, we encourage and welcome your participation and support. We could hold an ad-hoc steering group meeting at the DSA annual conference in November. From that we could then plan a programme for the full annual conference the following year.

We would appreciate it if you could respond as follows:

Are you able to offer any support to the Disasters and Development Study Group in terms of a commitment of time to planning and setting up its events, including attendance at occasional steering group or committee meetings?
Are you able to offer papers, ideas, contributions to future activities, whether you are involved in the steering group or not?

Please note that we are very happy to be part of a larger group to support the Study Group, but we are also certain that it will be difficult to maintain it on it on our own.

Please send your responses by the end of June to philip.buckle@gmail.com copied to terrycannon@blueyonder.co.uk

With good wishes

Terry Cannon and Philip Buckle

PS There is a new DSA Climate Change and Development Study Group, jointly convened by Valerie Nelson (NRI, University of Greenwich) and Natasha Grist, (Tyndall Centre, UEA). We hope to plan some joint activities with them in the next year or two.

Previous Activity

Meeting series on Disasters and Development

Advance notice

Development Studies Association Disasters and Development Study Group
in conjunction with the Overseas Development Institute

Supported by DFID and the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction

Background
This series of four meetings on Disasters and Development is aimed at influencing parliamentarians, policy makers and other stakeholders from the fields of development and disaster management. They are planned for October and November, to be held in London.

Disasters are a major factor in destroying and undermining the impact of development in many poor countries. It appears that a great deal of effort and finance is devoted to development without even attempting to ensure that it is robust enough to withstand known hazards. Instead, great amounts of donor assistance go into relief and recovery efforts once a disaster has struck. And little of this is designed to contribute to long-term development, and to the rebuilding and strengthening of livelihoods so that they are shock-proof. At the moment there is also little evidence that development programmes are paying heed to the added threats to progress from climate change and its magnification of risks.

From the perspective of poor people, we know that their priorities are almost always concerned with daily survival, and do not necessarily take into account the risks of serious hazards that outsiders are often concerned about. People at different levels – community, government, NGO, donors – perceive risks very differently, and have varying attitudes to risk mitigation options. We also have little understanding at the moment of how political processes (whether national, regional or global) can be reformed to address the linkages of disaster and development. There is also a lack of integration of disaster relief, humanitarian aid for recovery and development activities.

Objective
The meetings are designed to address and improve understanding of these issues, in order to improve policies so that development is properly integrated with disaster risk reduction. The series of linked sessions is aimed at informing politicians, civil servants, opinion formers, journalists and media organisations of the key issues involved in linking disasters with development. Provisional dates are being sought for October and November 2006.

The expected speakers will include prominent staff from international agencies and donors, and will include a Minister from DFID.

The topics are:
1. Disasters and Development: the state of knowledge and its policy relevance
2. When disasters are slow not sudden: poverty, hunger, drought and the failure of development
3. Effective financing of disaster risk reduction: what is missing, what can work
4. When disasters are divorced from development: donor accountability in emergency response and how to link disasters to development

Outcomes
A critical debate concerning current priorities, policies and strategies in disaster risk reduction and development so that the relevant agencies and institutions are able to improve their policies and make development and emergency spending more effective and based on an understanding of linkages, rather than being treated as separate sets of issues. This should also enable greater clarity about some of the obstacles to the achievement of Millennium Development Goals, and of poverty reduction in general.

These sessions will be coordinated by Philip Buckle (Coventry University) and Terry Cannon (Greenwich University) and supported by the Overseas Development Institute

Registrations of interest in attending can be sent to Philip Buckle at philip.buckle@gmail.com

If you are already on the Disasters and Development Study Group mailing list, you will automatically hear about these from the conveners.

Precise dates of the meetings will be sent out as soon as they are available and a formal registration process will be advised. Any queries can also be made to Philip Buckle.

Inaugural Meeting

“The Tsunami Disaster: road to recovery and secure development”

2-4.30pm, Wednesday 25 May 2005

Room 002, King William building, University of Greenwich, Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, London SE10 9LS

After the Tsunami – recovery and long-term impacts
The unprecedented response by people around the world to the tsunami disaster has been focused on the immediate suffering and relief needs of the people. Much less emphasis has been put on the longer-term needs for recovery of damaged and destroyed livelihoods – despite the fact that it may take years for the people to recover.

What is the role for aid donated for emergencies in such a context? How can it be transformed into assistance for recovery, and for a form of ‘development’ that is resistant to new hazards? What role do donors have in such circumstances, and how should they balance recovery and relief? Should tourism be restored to how it was before? How significant in worsening the tsunami impact was destruction of mangroves along some coasts to open up tourist beaches? What should be the role of the media in promoting the longer-term issues, in addition to coverage of the immediate impacts?

These and many other issues will be discussed at this meeting, which focuses on the longer-term impacts and the problems in recovery. In addition, it will provoke thinking about the needs of any warning system that is installed. As well as the technology, it will be imperative to install community-based preparedness in the warning process. There will also need to be a method of transmitting understanding of the risks from tsunamis over a period of 100 years or more, because of the long return period of such hazards. How can this be accomplished?

Speaker and Discussion Panel (presentations can be downloaded by clicking on the Presenters' names)

Peter Troy : Humanitarian Programmes Manager, Conflict and Humanitarian Affairs Department, DFID
Moira Reddick : Head, International Programme Advisory and Development Department, British Red Cross
Harold Goodwin : Director, International Centre for Responsible Tourism, University of Greenwich
Philip Buckle : Coventry University, Centre for Disaster Management
Terry Cannon : Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich

Terry Cannon – t.g.cannon@greenwich.ac.uk Phone 020 8331 8944 Mobile 07808 940 276

For more information, please download here (Word document)

Page last updated: 30 June, 2006