Spring 2013 DISASTER RISK REDUCTION AND RESILIENCE BUILDING IN CITIES : FOCUSING ON THE URBAN POOR (original) (raw)

This issue of Regional Development Dialogue (RDD) arises out of, and builds upon, the United Nations Centre for Regional Development (UNCRD) International Workshop on Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience Building of Urban Communities in Nagoya, Japan, in December 2012. As Jean D'Aragon's article indicates, there are many characteristics of urban areas which make them either more vulnerable or more resilient to disasters than rural areas. Higher investment can allow more sophisticated structural modifications for earthquakes and other physical measures to increase resilience to various kinds of disaster. The very concentration of investments, activities, people and movement within cities, however, means that the consequences of disasters can be more severe in the scale of damage done and livelihoods disrupted for a given area affected. Furthermore, as much urbanisation occurs in countries with only a few hundred dollars of gross domestic product (GDP) per head, hundreds of millions of people settle outside of the formal systems. The land they occupy and the lack of services provided can increase their vulnerability many-fold over those in formal housing and with formal employment. It was particularly important, therefore, that there should be a workshop and this issue of RDD to focus specifically on urban issues in Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience as UNCRD adds a specifically urban concern to its operations. UNCRD established its Disaster Management Planning Programme, in 1985, as one of its main thematic areas of work supporting efforts towards sustainable regional development in developing countries. Part of its work in disaster risk reduction (DRR), enhancing communities' resilience and reduce their vulnerability to natural and human-induced hazards and disasters, has recently begun to focus on urban areas specifically. As more than half the world's population is now urban and disasters often have more destructive effects in urban areas, this direction is timely and the workshop was one of its first activities.