Making development stronger than disaster
As an ascending middle income country, Bangladesh is seeing heavy investment – from government, companies, and private citizens sending remittances from abroad. Coupled with social development work, the result is that an unprecedented number of people are being lifted out of poverty, and are entering education, employment, and better lives every day. Supported by a well-functioning system for disaster warning and preparedness, the number of lives lost to disasters has never been so low.
With public and private investments facilitating growth and rapid improvement in the living standards of families across the nation, there is huge scope for risk reduction – but also risk accumulation. Only by managing disaster and climatic risks, can we make progress sustainable at household, community and national level. Otherwise, our growth and human development remains at risk from disaster shocks.
More is becoming known about earthquake risk to our cities; climate change heralds a change in intensity and frequency of cyclones and floods. This increased disaster risk is a major challenge to sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction. BBS' recent report on disaster statistics shows that 44 percent of households in disaster-prone areas have been affected more than once by disaster, and it is not difficult to see why there is an overlap between areas affected by disaster and pockets of extreme poverty. Repeated loss of housing and assets prevent families from leaving poverty behind.
Similarly, a major earthquake may hobble the national economic growth which is currently driving poverty reduction. The global economy does not wait for countries to recover from shocks; trade moves elsewhere. The garments sector in Sri Lanka lost investment and orders when the deadly conflict started in 1980s. Should a major earthquake disrupt production and supply chain in Bangladesh, the job security for 4.2 million people currently employed in the sector would be at risk.
To prevent a major cyclone or earthquake from permanently arresting the country's economic growth, or a seasonal flood from washing away the house and assets of a family, we must seize the momentum of progress, and safeguard our development gains – be they social, economic or infrastructural – by integrating resilience building into public and private investment. We need new policies for a new context.
Firstly, we must reshape development and investment to ensure that it is informed by what we know about our past and future disaster risk. A culture of disaster risk sensitivity must be nurtured, so that officials, investors and politicians understand the possible impacts disaster may have on their project or business, and integrate steps to mitigate these risks. This means making disaster risk information accessible to all; providing incentives to private sector for making risk-informed investments; and ensuring that planners have the knowledge they need to assess and mitigate disaster risk in their plans and programmes.
Secondly, we must upgrade our capacity for disaster management and risk mitigation so that we are able to absorb the shock of a major cyclone or earthquake. Our disaster professionals and volunteers must be trained and equipped, our response systems ready and able. Bangladesh has already created internationally recognised methods of climatic disaster management by the people, through the Cyclone Preparedness Programme and community risk assessments.We must now combine our experience with that of other countries, to create a model of earthquake risk management which builds the capacity of the people to reduce their risk and of government to respond.
Bangladesh is fortunate in that there are a number of structures within and outside the country which may support disaster resilience building. Although traditional development partner support is expected to decline in coming years, the strong culture of sharing and learning on disaster among countries in Asia provides vital input for government and practitioners continually improving our disaster risk management practices, including in the recovery phase.
Existing national programmes have the potential to deliver resilience dividends at a large scale, especially in the face of intensifying climatic disaster. Some of the most important developments in disaster risk reduction have come out of other sectors – look no further than to the oral rehydration solution, which has been key in lowering post-disaster illness and mortality. We need to continue such innovation and make risk informed development the norm.
Similarly, projects and innovations carry within them the seed of our next step towards resilience. Imagine a Bangladesh where the work done through the government's social safety programmes is used to raise plinths in the flood-prone areas, or stabilise slopes and riverbanks against mudslides and erosion. Adaptive social protection can be used not only to help vulnerable families put food on the table, but also support them and their communities to build their resilience against future disasters.
Economic growth and poverty reduction cannot be sustainable if it is not also disaster resilient. Building national resilience to future disasters will require – from all of us, whether in development, government or the private sector – to consider disaster risk management as an integral part of our projects, businesses, and programmes, and to unlock the transformative potentials within. If we make our development resilient, the dividend will be sustainable growth, shared prosperity and fewer people losing lives, livelihoods, and assets.
The writers are Acting Country Director, Assistant Country Director and Programme Consultant of UNDP Bangladesh, respectively.
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