An ODI/DSA/APGOOD/DFID/UN-ISDR Meetings Series

Disasters and Development: From Relief to Preparedness and Risk Reduction

ODI, APGOOD, the DSA and DFID are pleased to announce a new series of four public meetings which will examine the problems of linking disaster risk reduction to the development process.

Until recently, the impact of natural hazards on development had been almost completely ignored. An understanding of disasters as a factor that could both generate new poverty, and make poor people more vulnerable to natural hazards, had also been conspicuously absent from discussions about poverty reduction.

With the publication in 2005 of the UK Department for International Development (DFID) scoping study, ‘Disaster Risk Reduction: A Development Concern’, followed by the 2006 DFID policy paper, ‘Reducing the Risk of Disasters’, there has been a flurry of activity around linking disaster risk reduction to the Millennium Development Goals, as well as a realisation that Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRS) need to include some assessment of natural hazards as causal factors in poverty and poverty as a factor which can expose people to higher levels of risk to natural hazards. There is also a growing recognition of the need to incorporate the enhanced risk of disasters as a result of climate change into PRS.

This series of four meetings aims to address some of the problems involved in operationalising the linkages between disaster risk reduction and the development process.

Meeting 1: The State of Knowledge and Its Policy Relevance

The first meeting in the series will review the state of the knowledge base and the current policy framework regarding the linkages between disasters and development.

Speakers: Margareta Wahlstrom, Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, United Nations and Jennifer Worrell, Senior Programme Advisor, UNDP Bureau of Crisis Prevention and Recovery, Geneva Disaster Risk Reduction Unit.

Chair: Adrian Hewitt, Research Fellow, ODI and Research Advisor to APGOOD

Monday 23rd October – 1.00-2.30PM - ODI

Meeting 2: When Disasters are Slow not Sudden: Poverty, Hunger, Drought, Disease and the Failure of Development

The second meeting will promote a discussion of countries where chronic problems such as poverty, disease, hunger and drought are endemic, and of poverty issues more generally as factors in disaster vulnerability.

Speakers: Ken Westgate, Regional Disaster Reduction Advisor, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Nairobi and Terry Jeggle, UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR).

Chair: Tony Baldry MP, Vice-Chair, APGOOD

Wednesday 1st November – 12.30-2.00PM - Committee Room 17, House of Commons

Meeting 3: Effective Financing of Disaster Risk Reduction: What is Missing, What Can Work?

The third meeting will address the issues of donor and international institution financing and its relevance (or not) for disaster risk reduction.

Speakers: Kari Keipi, Senior Natural Resource Specialist, Sustainable Development Department, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Jim Drummond, Director, UN, Conflict and Humanitarian Division, DFID.

Chair: Baroness Janet Whitaker, Vice-Chair, APGOOD

Wednesday 15th November - 1.00-2.30PM - Room 3W11, DFID, 1 Palace Street, London SW1E 5HE

The fourth and final meeting in the series will examine the often neglected issue of managing emergency relief funding, and the accountability of donors for the assistance they provide, especially given that donor activity is often driven by the media's presentation of disasters, making the integration of mitigation, recovery and development with risk reduction extremely difficult.

Speakers: Jack Jones, Humanitarian Programmes Manager, CHASE, DFID and Terry Cannon, Reader in Development Studies, Fellow of the Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich and meeting series convenor

Chair: Rt Hon John Battle MP, Chair, APGOOD

Wednesday 29th November - 1.00-2.30PM - Boothroyd Room, Portcullis House