Show simple item record

dc.contributor.authorHewitt, Kenneth
dc.date.accessioned2013-08-16T10:45:11Z
dc.date.available2013-08-16T10:45:11Z
dc.date.issued2013
dc.identifier.citationHewitt, K. 2013. Disasters in ‘development’ contexts: contradictions and options for a preventive approach. Jàmbá: Journal of Disaster Risk Studies, 5(2):1-8 [http://dspace.nwu.ac.za/handle/10394/8847]en_US
dc.identifier.issn1998-1421
dc.identifier.issn2072-845X
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10394/8931
dc.description.abstractThe relations of development and disaster offer a starting point for an overview of disaster risk reduction (DRR) in African contexts. A social vulnerability approach is adopted with its goal of improving conditions for persons and places most at risk. However, this approach faces serious contradictions in both the disasters and development scenes. Disaster events and losses have grown exponentially in recent decades. So have advances in disaster-related knowledge and the institutions and material resources devoted to disaster management. Evidently, the latter have not reduced disaster incidence or over all losses. Similar contradictions appear in development. By some measures, in most developing countries the economy has grown much faster than population. Yet, indebtedness, unemployment and insecurity seem worse in many countries. Poverty, the avowed target, remains huge in urban, peri-urban and rural areas singled out by disaster losses. Problems also arise from separate treatment of development and disaster. Climate change and the global financial crises challenge some of the most basic assumptions. The promise of ‘developed nations’, built around massive use of fossil fuels, puts global and African economic growth on a collision course with environmental calamity. The 2008 financial crisis has undermined the safety of global majorities, as well as reliance on development assistance. The case for alternatives in development and DRR is reinforced, including the vulnerability-reducing responses highlighted in the Hyogo framework for action. However, this is being undermined by a return to a civil defence-type approach, an increasingly militarised, and for-profit, focus on emergency management.en_US
dc.description.urihttps://doi.org/10.4102/jamba.v5i2.91
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherAOSIS OpenJournalsen_US
dc.subjectSafety
dc.subjectGrowth
dc.subjectDisaster risk reduction (DRR)
dc.subjectDisaster prevention
dc.subjectHyogo Framework for Action
dc.subjectDeveloping countries (DCs)
dc.subjectGlobal financial crisis
dc.subjectClimate change
dc.titleDisasters in ‘development’ contexts: contradictions and options for a preventive approachen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US


Files in this item

Thumbnail

This item appears in the following Collection(s)

Show simple item record