This lesson is a continuation of Disasters and Development: Part 2: Understanding and Exploiting Disaster-Development Linkages published in Prehospital and Disaster Medicine in Volume 17, Number 3. It identifies the goals of a specific damage mitigation project that can be incorporated into a regular development project and the mechanisms for obtaining the mitigation component of such a project. Mechanisms for assessing the success of such a project are discussed. It stresses the importance of the application of building codes, associated training programs, and more extensive use of zoning regulations in urban development that decrease the population at risk and the likelihood of damage to industrial facilities. Disasters can elevate the development potential of a society at risk for damage from a hazard. The political impact of damage and disruption can be a catalyst for change. Development opportunities often are compromised because of an excessive focus on relief assistance. Interventions designed to mitigate the damage from a given hazard are particularly effective when they focus on areas at particularly high risk for actualization of the hazard. Support from the private sector, including the non-formal sector, is a key element of successful reconstruction management. The period of recovery is an opportunity for general assistance to government with administrative procedures, including enhanced management training programs.

This lesson describes how a government decides whether and how much it should spend on vulnerability reduction. There are techniques and methods by which decision-makers compare development alternatives. The differences between the risk that a potentially catastrophic event will occur and uncertainty are described, with uncertainty providing greater difficulty in economic analyses. There is a range of methods for identifying the complex mix of competing costs and benefits associated with any restructuring of investment priorities to accomplish disaster mitigation. The possibilities are described in terms of the opportunity costs and present value. Impact and consequent losses include: (1) direct monetary effects; (2) indirect monetary effects; (3) direct, non-monetary effects; (4) indirect, non-monetary effects; and (5) loss of non-renewable natural resources. The difficulties in assigning values to these effects are described, as well as the means of judging the cost-effectiveness of such interventions. An advantage of screening projects using a framework of analytical methods is that it can assist in focusing on a variety of possible outcomes and make the factors influencing these outcomes quite explicit.

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AbstractThis lesson is a continuation of Disasters and Development: Part 2: Understanding and Exploiting Disaster-Development Linkages published in Prehospital and Disaster Medicine in Volume 17, Number 3. It identifies the goals of a specific damage mitigation project that can be incorporated into a regular development project and the mechanisms for obtaining the mitigation component of such a project. Mechanisms for assessing the success of such a project are discussed. It stresses the importance of the application of building codes, associated training programs, and more extensive use of zoning regulations in urban development that decrease the population at risk and the likelihood of damage to industrial facilities. Disasters can elevate the development potential of a society at risk for damage from a hazard. The political impact of damage and disruption can be a catalyst for change. Development opportunities often are compromised because of an excessive focus on relief assistance. Interventions designed to mitigate the damage from a given hazard are particularly effective when they focus on areas at particularly high risk for actualization of the hazard. Support from the private sector, including the non-formal sector, is a key element of successful reconstruction management. The period of recovery is an opportunity for general assistance to government with administrative procedures, including enhanced management training programs.

AbstractThis module introduces a paradigm for understanding the disaster/ development interface. Specifically, the module asserts that disasters and development are linked closely in that disasters can both destroy development initiatives and create development opportunities, and that development schemes can both increase and decrease vulnerability. The module consists of four parts:Part One introduces these concepts and discusses how disasters can vary from one type of hazard to another, as well as from one type of economic condition to another.Part Two develops the paradigm in depth, and provides case examples to amplify the points made in the text.Part Three describes and discusses different methods and tools for analyzing decisions for potential investment of resources, and should enhance the reader's capacity to analyze the mitigational benefits of development alternatives in both the pre- and post-disaster context.Part Four conceptualizes the role of UN agencies, NGOs, and the affected communities in promoting development based on the concepts discussed in the module.This training module, Disasters and Development, initially was designed to introduce this aspect of disaster management to an audience of UN organization professionals who form disaster management teams, as well as to government counterpart agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and donors. The educational process has been designed to increase the audience's awareness of the nature and management of disasters, in order to lead to better performance in disaster preparedness and response.The content has been written by experts in the field of disaster management and in general follows the UNDP/UNDRO Disaster Management Manual and its principles, procedures, and terminology.