Accelerating Sendai Framework Implementation in Asia - Disaster Risk Reduction in Contexts of Violence, Conflict and Fragility
Publisher: Overseas Development Institute
Author(s): Katie Peters
Date: 2018
Topics: Climate Change, Conflict Causes, Conflict Prevention, Disasters, Governance
Asia is commonly considered peaceful relative to other regions of the world. In fact, however, conflict and violence affect every country in some form or other, and contrary to the adage that peace follows development, even in rapidly developing contexts issues of conflict, violence and fragility form part of the wider environment within which disaster risk reduction (DRR) takes place. Just under half of all global disasters occurred in the AsiaPacific region between 2000 and 2017. The area accounts for more than half of global disaster mortality and significant disaster displacement, and is expected to move from ‘high’ to ‘severe’ vulnerability by 2030 due to additional deaths from extreme weather. The impacts of disasters are especially severe in fragile and conflict-affected contexts: 55% of climate-related disaster deaths in Asia between 1997 and 2016 took place in the region’s four most fragile countries , and between 2012 and 2018 Asia’s five most fragile countries – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Pakistan – suffered $8,088 million-worth of damage from disasters. These findings are hardly surprising. Disasters are neither natural nor conflict-neutral, but the product of a combination of hazard, exposure, vulnerability and (lack of) capacity, all of which turn a hazard into a disaster. The constituent components of disaster risk are therefore governed by the socio-economic and political conditions in which people live. Conditions of violence, conflict and fragility are part and parcel of the discussion on how, where and when disasters happen – and need to be part of the conversation about how disaster risk can be reduced. The relationship between vulnerability to disaster and violence, conflict and fragility is complex and multifaceted. There are examples of disasters increasing the incidence of armed conflict and violence in Asia, and conditions of conflict can increase the likelihood and impact of disasters. Fragility and conflict can also limit or constrain the reach and effectiveness of institutional and governance arrangements for risk management. A nascent body of evidence exists on disaster response in fragile and conflict-affected contexts, but limited attention has been paid to how to effectively and systematically identify, reduce and monitor disaster risk in difficult operating environments. Doing so may help reveal and challenge underlying assumptions in DRR approaches. For example, the prevalence of sexual and genderbased violence in disasters opens up space to challenge conventional wisdom about the opportunities that disasters afford – and the ambition to ‘build back better’. Evidence suggests that disasters predominantly reinforce traditional gender roles and/or worsen gender inequalities.
A global framework for DRR exists – the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction – but this, along with accompanying national and regional frameworks and action plans, does not explicitly consider violence, conflict and fragility as underlying drivers of vulnerability to disaster risk. Whether, and how, Asia collates experience and evidence on DRR in contexts affected by violence, fragility and conflict, and uses this to advance action, is not universally agreed, in part because of sensitivities over the terms ‘conflict’ and ‘fragility’, and a realisation that making progress requires moving away from the relative safety of apolitical and technocentric approaches to risk reduction to an approach where issues of power and politics come to the fore. Progress towards the objectives of the Sendai Framework requires explicit and concerted attention to DRR in conditions of violence, conflict and fragility. Together with a moral imperative, findings from other sectors show that targeting investment to individual groups and contexts lagging behind most in achieving global targets can accelerate progress and represent better value for money. Given the total quantum of disaster losses that countries are going to suffer – exacerbated by climate-related hazard trends – governments need to create resources from their own domestic budgets to finance DRR. In the meantime, Official Development Assistance (ODA) also requires a fundamental rethink. For the period 1997–2016, just 4% of ODA was spent on disaster prevention and preparedness, as against 72% on emergency response. Figures at country level mirror this pattern: for every $100 spent on emergency response, the following was spent on disaster prevention and preparedness: Afghanistan $2.24, Pakistan $1.74, Myanmar $6.61 and the DPRK $3.23. In some instances, disasters can reduce the risk or incidence of conflict – which has led to discussions over the potential role of DRR in conflict prevention. Targeted resources – capacity, knowledge and financial – to DRR in fragile and conflict-affected contexts should also be considered part of the collective ambition to make progress on the UN Secretary-General’s sustaining peace and prevention agenda: explicitly, by seeking to prevent disasters; and implicitly, by contributing to sustaining peace through effective disaster management. This is a highly politically charged topic for some Asian governments and stakeholders. Slow sensitisation, based on evidence of what works in delivering DRR in contexts of violence, conflict and fragility, will be required to build a more positive narrative for local and national actors about how disaster impacts can be reduced in challenging operating environments.