Question

Discuss the role of poverty in post-disaster recovery

Answer 1

While protecting people and communities and avoiding disasters are always the focus, many countries are still impacted by disaster. It affects lives and livelihoods, stunts and often erases progress in growth, trapping people in cycles of poverty and insecurity, leaving them more vulnerable to future disasters. Recovery is helping people return to the path of development. UNDP supports recovery which helps people better restore, reduces risk, and creates resilience. The UNDP emphasizes the human and social aspects of recovery through partnerships with national governments, NGOs, civil society groups and communities. UNDP has spent over US$ 1 billion on recovery since 2005, delivering technical and financial aid in 112 countries for post-disaster recovery programs.

Poverty, increased population growth, urbanization, climate change, and improvements in construction practices and materials, access to safe land are some of the many reasons why disaster risk and human vulnerability are growing worldwide. And while the world is mobilizing in the wake of disasters, much of the damage caused by disasters is due to lack of action to reduce threat even vulnerability before the disaster occurs. There is a need to increase efforts to promote prevention and reduction of vulnerability, especially in poor communities where there is the greatest vulnerability.

Poverty is the root cause of vulnerability. The wealthy may have more to lose, but the poor are the ones that suffer the most, are more at risk, and live in unsafe places and unsafe homes. The areas in which they live have fewer infrastructure and support levels. If disaster strikes, the social and economic rehabilitation costs are very high for the poor, and the end result is that after a catastrophe poor families often find themselves in an even more vulnerable situation. Most people living on the edge of poverty are returning to real poverty.