Dr. Aaron Clark-Ginsberg is a social scientist at the RAND Corporation (USA), a nonprofit, nonpartisan institution that helps improve policy and decision-making across the world through research and analysis.
Unevenness is there not only in terms of resource distribution; rather, it is in terms of vulnerability and exposure to risk too. The ones with the lowest share of resources are (poorer and marginalized) the most exposed and vulnerable to various risks in urban areas. A common but differentiated responsibility amongst the different sections of society is needed to bring an equity-centred DRR approach. To ensure “Protection (of all) from disaster is a right and not a privilege,” reforms in policy, laws, regulations and ideologies need to be brought.
Poorer and more marginalized city dwellers rarely have access to concentrated opportunities that cities provide. Instead of being able to participate in urban systems fully and access the economic, health, educational, political and social resources found in cities, poorer city dwellers tend to be relegated to the margins of urban life, often living in slums and other locations with minimal services and a great deal of risk. This leaves many city dwellers stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty and vulnerability, exposed to various shocks — including intensive hazards such as hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes and daily disasters of violence, pollution and fires whose cumulative impact is often greater than intensive hazards — and lacking resources with which to cope with and recover from disasters’ impacts. Thus, instead of being able to use the resources found in cities to prosper and thrive, many urban dwellers remain highly precarious, with disasters repeatedly compromising development gains.
Organizations must tackle issues of equity in their DRR (Disaster Risk Reduction) programmes to make a difference in the lives of poorer residents. By facilitating equal access to essential services and holding risk producers — the polluters, corporations, state agencies, and other organizations that are creating hazards and exacerbating vulnerably — accountable for the risks that they create, organizations can help marginalized city dwellers more fully participate in urban life and move a position of risk to one of opportunity.
Yet organizations rarely make issues of equity central to their DRR programming. Instead, DRR interventions typically entail small scale technical activities designed to improve local capacity and mitigate localized hazards, often under a community-based DRR. While these interventions can address some of the localized and immediate hazards that marginalized city-dwellers face and often offer a lifeline for escaping some of the worst impacts of disasters, they do little to change the underlying forces of inequality and vulnerability, maintaining risk and limiting opportunity. Rather than breaking the cycle of poverty and vulnerability, these interventions maintain (and in worst cases, even support) the underlying structures creating risk.
An equity-centred approach to DRR looks different than a traditional approach to DRR. It is more explicitly political, using advocacy channels to reform the laws, regulations, ideologies, and other institutional and social systems perpetuating risk and allowing some to prosper at the expense of others. Since these systems are deeply rooted in the fabric of society, changes are often only able to be made slowly, with success often being realized gradually over decades rather than years. DRR thus requires a long-term commitment beyond typical short-term project cycles. Lastly-and most importantly-equity-centred DRR must be driven by recognizing that protection from disaster is a right rather than a privilege. This demands solidarity with marginalized and at-risk people, and with them as equals rather than placing them in positions of subservience. This way of working can be difficult as it requires political resources, time, and forms of solidarity that organizations typically have a difficult time accessing. However, the risks that marginalized city dwellers face are related to equity at their core – an equity-centred approach to DRR is the only way to escape from poverty and vulnerability truly. Therefore, organizations must rise to this type of work to help city dwellers move from precarity to opportunity.
