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Climate Resilient Cities - Mar 2010
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- WEEK 1: Cities and Disaster Risk Sat, 2010-07-10 12:05
- WEEK 2: Building Blocks of UDRM Wed, 2010-03-31 05:40
The nature and character of human and urban settlements differs throughout the developing world, most share a history of colonialism, this has influenced the process of urbanisation. Most colonial settlements constitute a case of risk by origin, being exposed to storms, volcanic eruptions or earthquakes (Pelling, 2003; UNDP-BCPR, 2004).
In essence, this is due, to economic factors playing a predominant role for site selection. In contrast to planned settlements, naturally grown cities, seem to have developed in safer areas (e.g. Milbert, IUED). Despite this, the manner in which settlements tend to grow and develop, creates their own hazards, which, in turn, can generate large-scale disasters.
The problem in developing countries is that the planning and building codes are colonial legacies, or mostly imported standards, without much attention being given to local factors, and standards, which are based on quality instead of performance (e.g. Gavidia, UN-HABITAT).
How do you institute post-colonial frameworks, by using a "bottom-up" approach to disaster risk.?
Engaging local communities to set the agenda based around community knowledge?
Insurance is unaffordable or unavailable to the poor. Microfinance, social funds and micro-insurance are effective alternative mechanisms for financing risk reduction in poor and vulnerable communities.
Microfinance has proven to be a successful means for strengthening access to credit, savings, and other financial services. It increases financial resilience by providing access to credit and other financial services to enable investment in higher yield livelihood strategies, diversify livelihood strategies, and enable investment in risk reduction measures to limit exposure of livelihoods to disaster shocks.
Social funds are community grant programs that provide block grants for projects to build up community assets such as community facilities, infrastructure or improved services. Such facilities and services can contribute to community risk reduction and strengthen access to credit for households and small businesses, which can help spur economic development and strengthen buffers against disaster shocks.
Micro-insurance can promote increased levels of resilience by increasing access to finances after shocks thus strengthening coping capability and reducing the likelihood of disastrous impacts. Micro-insurance can also provide greater discretion to households and small businesses in pursuing coping and recovery strategies, and in some instances, it can also serve as an incentive for disaster risk reduction.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of Micro-finance and household debt over Social Funds and Community Grants as a mechanism for strengthening community capacity for climate adaptation and UDRM.?