Africa-Press – Malawi. Poverty and inequality are both a driver and consequence of disasters. In fact, processes that further disaster risk-related poverty are permeated with inequality.
A rise in socio-economic inequality leads to an increase in disaster risk for countries, communities, households and businesses, among others, and this becomes more evident as those that have limited opportunities to manage their risks and strengthen their resilience suffer the most.
The spread and distribution of inequality manifests itself between regions and countries, within countries, within cities and localities. This leads to disparities, in terms of the relationship between poverty and direct economic loss attributed to disasters.
Poverty tends to exacerbate vulnerability. By extension, impoverished people are more likely to live in hazard-exposed areas. Further, they are less able to invest in risk-reduction measures. The use of already limited assets to buffer disaster losses drives poor people into further poverty.
Poverty is, therefore, both a cause and consequence of disaster risk, particularly extensive risk, with drought being the hazard most closely associated with poverty.
The impact of disasters on the poor can, in addition to loss of life, injury and damage, culminate in total loss of livelihoods, displacement, poor health and food insecurity, among other consequences.
Poor rural livelihoods are highly exposed and vulnerable to weather-related hazards and have a low resilience to loss because they have little or no surplus capacity to absorb crop or livestock income losses and to recover. Even a small loss might feed back into further poverty and future vulnerability.
Housing is usually the principal economic asset of poor urban households, providing not only shelter and personal security, but also often their livelihood. Damage or loss to housing, together with essential domestic possessions, therefore, place enormous strain on household economies, given the high monetary cost of replacing lost assets, relative to low and irregular incomes, and the absence of insurance or safety nets.
Key factors in underprivileged areas include low-quality and insecure housing, which in turn limits access to basic services such as health care, public transport, communications and infrastructure such as water, sanitation, drainage and roads. Higher mortality and morbidity rates among children, the elderly and women are directly linked to these different poverty factors.
Inequality, on the other hand, facilitates the transfer of disaster risks from those who benefit from risk taking to those who bear the cost, mainly through ineffective accountability and increased levels of corruption. Inequality, unfortunately though, redistributes disaster risk through uneven economic development, segregated urban development, climate change and the overconsumption of resources. A rise in inequality can be a destabilising force that manifests not only in increasing disaster risk but also in decreasing capacities to manage those risks.
It should be noted though that while poverty and inequality drive vulnerability, the vulnerable also have some capacities to cope with disasters. Therefore, strengthening those capacities, especially those that address needs and disaster risk in the long term, can enable communities to recover from disasters.
Strengthening livelihoods and increasing resilience is, therefore, critical to reducing both disaster risk and poverty. In rural areas, livelihoods are particularly sensitive and vulnerable to weather fluctuations and extremes.
While the growth of the urban informal economy provides livelihoods for millions of people, with it are environmental pressures. Therefore, how it evolves becomes crucial in transitioning to a more resilient economy.
As such, building resilience in the urban informal economy is about working with, and not against, the urban poor, improving formal regulatory systems and operations of the informal economy.
Strengthening livelihoods is about building human, social, political, physical, financial and natural assets. Assets perform two key functions, to build capacity through better access to resources, for instance education, leading to a better job; and to reduce vulnerability by acting as the buffer between people and hazards, besides other shocks and stresses.
Households with more assets are less vulnerable. Assets provide buffers against disaster loss. For instance, households might consider selling livestock in the event of crop and harvest failure. Now, for people to build assets, they need access to resources. This access is, unfortunately, hindered by inequality owing to such factors as gender, age, social, economic, disability as well as legal and illegal control of assets.
*This write-up has been adapted from the Overseas Development Institute Met Office Risk Management Solutions as shared by UNDRR.
For More News And Analysis About Malawi Follow Africa-Press
