Posted December 1999

Population, poverty and vulnerability: Mitigating the effects of natural disasters, Part 2

Impacts on migration

An important change that tends to emerge following a crisis or disaster is migration in search of new opportunities. Immediate effects which can be foreseen in this domain include displacement due to the loss of belongings (housing, lands, etc.) and the need to find new employment and income.

Changes in the structure of production caused by the effects of Mitch, (in agriculture, for example) may also result in increased migration. In Honduras, although highland subsistence crops fared better, banana, coffee, sugar, citric fruits and other crops were devastated. Roads and warehouses were flooded. In Nicaragua, cereal crops, produced mostly by small farmers, were seriously affected, as were main export crops and cattle ranching. In Guatemala and El Salvador, damage was less serious although still significant. Altogether, an important part of the population lost its source of subsistence. Increased rural-urban migration can be expected to result from these various situations. (ECLAC 1999).

Unfortunately, there is no empirical information available to validate these plausible hypotheses and, unless special surveys are carried out, we will have to await the next census in order to determine the extent to which Mitch could have altered spatial distribution in the region. The same is true with respect to international migration. Although an increase in movement abroad has been widely publicized in newspaper accounts, empirical evidence is still limited.

Impacts on population growth

Due to the magnitude of the total number of deaths caused by Mitch in Honduras, the effect on population growth during that year is not insignificant. As can be seen from Figure 2, close to 10 per cent of expected growth did not materialize in 1998 due to the effects of Mitch. Some provinces were considerably more affected. In the departaments of Islas de la Bahía, Gracias a Dios y Santa Bárbara, percentages of reduction in population growth (without considering migration) was 92, 62 and 40% respectively.

III. Policy implications for the post-Mitch era

A. PREVENTION

The limitations of working only in an a posteriori mode were made apparent in the case of Mitch. Even though timely actions during and after a crisis were very important, the most critical investments evidently concern the prevention phase. In this connection, proactive actions affecting the spatial distribution of population can be seen as the most fundamental in reducing the effects of future disasters. On another plane, actions in the reproductive health sector are also critical. Finally, early warning systems and other data collection systems can make a significant contribution to reduction of a disaster's impacts.

a) Spatial distribution and vulnerability

This section contends that, in efforts oriented toward providing a safer future for the population of Central America, the improved utilization of geographic space can contribute to greater sustainability and personal security. This is because the spatial location and organization of human activity is a critical determinant of risk in natural disasters. In order to attain a better balance between space, sustainability and the reduction of vulnerability in the future, it will be necessary to review traditional frameworks, and to integrate a systematic concern with the dynamics of population redistribution within efforts aimed at reconstruction and development in the region's countries.

Stimulating new patterns of spatial organization in order to reduce vulnerability and to promote longer-term sustainability requires a proactive and holistic approach which encompasses demographic, economic and environmental aspects. In order to face this challenge, a new conceptual tool, which we call "THE SUSTAINABLE USE OF SPACE" can be recommended ^[7]. This approach starts out with the observation that every country has a population of size X, growing at the rate of Y, which has to distribute itself somehow over territory Z. The key question in this context is - what is the best possible manner we can distribute this population over this land area in order to promote both sustainability and the mitigation of vulnerability, while also exploiting the country's comparative advantages? The challenge is to define what concrete options we have in terms of spatial distribution, what are the advantages and disadvantages of each option and what are the instruments at our disposal for the promotion of the most sustainable options.

As noted earlier, current patterns of population distribution, determined largely by market factors, result in poor people being forced to occupy inappropriate areas. This contributes enormously to their vulnerability. How can this trend be reverted? Do we have a coherent game plan, based on considerations of vulnerability? In what directions would we ideally want to promote growth? What do we know about the "ideal map" that could help us take a proactive stance aimed at reducing the vulnerability of poor people in Central American countries?

There are two basic directions to be taken here. First, we need to identify populations at risk - both to sporadic catastrophes such as hurricanes and earthquakes, as well as to recurrent events such as droughts and floods -- and to other problems such as landslides which may be brought on by natural disasters, by human interventions, or by both. Once the populations at risk have been identified, the demographic occupation of such areas must be limited, prevented or regulated. The utilization of information provided by GIS systems, together with historical registers, permits the identification, at satisfactory levels of accuracy, of those areas which are subject to flooding, seismic movements, droughts, landslides and even the recurrence of hurricanes. It also permits analysis of occupational density of the areas at risk, evaluation of the degree of risk involved and, consequently, of the relative urgency of population relocation. Obviously, this does not guarantee that people can be motivated to move out of high-risk areas. The fact that people continue to settle along the San Andreas Fault or in Mexico City evidently indicate that other factors are at play. Nevertheless, since the principal concern here would be with new growth, preventive orientation can play a significant role.

Secondly, in order for efforts aimed at relocating populations at risk to work, viable alternatives for demographic/economic expansion have to be offered. This means we need to identify areas that can absorb the population contingents that would otherwise seek to reside in vulnerable areas or in protected ecosystems. This inevitably involves economic as well as socio-environmental considerations: if population distribution is consequent upon the spatial location of economic activity, the reduction of vulnerability and the protection of the environment requires an integrated approach to development. The growing field of strategic impact assessment can provide important contributions to this effort. In the current economic context, this will require working together with the private sector, in order to exploit a country's economic advantages without enhancing vulnerability and degradation. The State's role is to orient economic advantages using fiscal mechanisms and other incentives or disincentives. In short, mitigating vulnerability and promoting sustainability requires a proactive approach to space that combines economic benefits with social and environmental concerns. This is not easy but progress can be made basically along two dimensions: the orientation of urban growth and of regional development. Each of these will now be examined briefly.

Urbanization and urban growth

At the outset, it is essential to recognize that, despite the intensity of past migration flows, urban growth is still at an incipient stage in most of the Central American region. There, urbanization levels remain relatively low by Latin American standards, although they have increased significantly in recent decades. It is estimated that, at the present time, the proportion of the total population living in urban areas varies between 40 and 55% in Central America (CELADE 1999). More importantly, they are expected to expand several times during the coming generations. In Honduras, for instance, the urban population grew from 28% in 1970 to 44% in 1996. By the year 2030, it is estimated that the urban population will have increased to 7.3 million, representing 64% of the total. (Figure 3) That is, it can be estimated that the number of persons living in urban areas in Honduras will increase by 4.7 million during the interim.

The same magnitude of urban growth can be observed in other countries of the region. In Guatemala, for instance, the urban population is expected to triple from 4.3 million in 1996 to 13.4 by the year 2030, representing an absolute increase of 9.2 million. (Table 4). Altogether, we can foresee that there will be an increase of some 23 million people in urban areas of Central America by the year 2030. The geographic and physical placement of these additional 23 million urban inhabitants in Central America, as well as the quality of housing and construction, will be determining factors in the country's future vulnerability. Should current trends - marked by the absence of effective land-use planning in urban areas, by the neglect of the needs of the poor and by the domination of haphazard market forces - persist, it can almost be guaranteed that the population of Central America will become increasingly vulnerable to natural threats. .

Efforts can and should be made to improve living conditions in rural areas. This would produce various changes. Initially, efforts to reduce rural poverty and to provide rural dwellers with health services, especially in the area of reproductive health, would tend to reduce the incidence of undesired fertility and thus the rate of rate of growth of the rural population. At the same time, these improvements in living conditions would help reduce migration to urban areas, thereby reducing the intensity of urban growth. Nevertheless, history teaches us that no agricultural or demographic policy is likely to retain population in rural areas or to significantly affect ongoing urbanization trends.

Hence, the main lesson which can be derived from an analysis of demographic processes and their relation to natural disasters is the need to initiate an explicit and effective planning of land use in urban areas in order to face what is inevitable: the intensification of city growth and the tripling of current urban population size.

Facing such challenges requires a change in mentality, attitude and approach. Most disaster response practice and experience to date deals with rural people and rural disasters. It is time to face the dimension of urban growth and urban concentration, whose inevitability would persist even if a reduction in the rate of rural population growth were attained. In the past, authorities have always resisted urban growth instead of trying to organize it. Consequently, migrants pressured by the lack of resources and by a speculative land market have been forced to occupy the least desirable and least adequate sites.

The negative stance of political authorities, by denying the inevitable character of urban growth and urbanization, has prevented effective solutions and contributed to the magnification of vulnerability. In facing up to this challenge, efforts should be focused principally on the identification and occupation of new and appropriate localities; trying to redress errors in existing residential areas is likely to be extremely costly in political and economic terms. Working on new potential areas is also justified by the fact that most urban growth is still to come. Moreover, it is also true that prosperous and environmentally-sound settlements are per se capable of attracting people from other areas, thereby helping to alleviate the problems in existing inadequate settlements.

It can be argued that urbanization actually constitutes an important potential ally for sustainability (Martine 1995 and 1999b). In order for cities to actually materialize these potential advantages, however, it will be necessary to intervene in the use of space. A proactive attitude with respect to location, concentration and spatial utilization will have to be implemented to counteract the market's ineffective domination within urban spaces.

From this latter standpoint, the most important initiative is to plan for the land needs of the poor (World Resources Institute 1997:68). Failure to look ahead to the needs of the poor has generated serious economic and environmental costs for cities and countries in the region. Attempts to resolve the problems caused by squatter settlements a posteriori have much higher social, economic and environmental costs. The current mechanisms that organize land markets - land speculation and serendipity - cannot be trusted to come up with social and environmental solutions. Should they continue to prevail, the next disasters will have progressively more serious consequences than Mitch.

Within the theme of urban planning, insufficient attention is given to the issue of density. What is needed are compact cities which concentrate population, housing and jobs in a relatively reduced space, in order to be space and energy efficient. Evidently, such cities should be located in areas which are less vulnerable to the effects of natural disasters. Some verticalization of growth, where possible, can be a boon, whereas the American-type suburb is unsustainable. Planning for urban space also requires greater emphasis on public transportation rather than on the private automobile. The Los Angeles pattern of dispersion is unsustainable but is spreading in such places as Panama and even Managua. Actually, given the geological frailty of its soils, this latter city should probably not be favored by any new construction.

Regional development

More sustainable spatial patterns of economic activity and population distribution should also be favored at the regional level, both within and between Central-American countries. In this case, however, it is more difficult to derive generic lessons or formulate general recommendations since solutions depend on the specificities of resource management and economic activity in each country and region. Moreover, spatial planning here has to work together with the private sector and with other segments of society in order to take advantage of each country's comparative advantage. Ongoing globalization makes this process even more complicated since it can rapidly alter the nature of comparative advantages and make long-term planning difficult.

The reconstruction process which is underway in Central America obviously will require greater success in the economic domain than that which was attained prior to Mitch. To achieve it, the countries will have to undertake a series of measures whose scope transcends the boundaries of this paper, including regional integration. The relatively diminutive scale of the countries involved urges the adoption of a common development and reconstruction strategy. The aforementioned Stockholm meeting underlined the need to carry out reconstruction and transformation efforts within a regional perspective ^[8].

Similar conclusions were reached by the IDNDR International Program Forum Geneva, 5-9 July 1999) which stressed "the importance of developing and strengthening regional approaches to disaster reduction ^[9]. The mitigation of vulnerability also requires that adjustments be made to the miracle of the market model, both in the social and environmental domains. The market is incapable of assigning value to many environmental goods, and lacks the long-term vision required for investment in sustainability. Hence, it is the public sector's duty to orient market mechanisms towards the sustainable use of space in practical ways, such as construction of infrastructure, zoning and provision of incentives. Some entity has to take the long-range approach and try to visualize different scenarios of spatial organization with the object of maximizing economic and environmental advantages of new or ongoing investments.

Regulating urban land use is, admittedly, extremely difficult (World Resources Institute 1997). It requires a longer-term vision than the duration of most political mandates. Hence, no politician can espouse this cause expecting to reap immediate political windfalls. New initiatives will be have to be daring. For instance, bilateral and multilateral donor agencies may consider setting up land banks for poor urban migrants. Although this notion may appear revolutionary, it would evidently be much cheaper than cleaning up increasingly serious disasters. On another level, advantage should also be taken, inter alia, of the recently-announced partnership between Habitat and the Quercus Corporation to develop specialized data collection, analysis, management, dissemination and use of knowledge on human settlements for use by "urban observatories" (Habitat 1999). Other opportunities for working with the private sector on such issues should also be promoted.

The entity which should be capable of initiating and coordinating the implementation of a sustainable vision of the future is the State, instigated, directed and controlled by civil society. Despite the fact that globalization and structural adjustment have promoted minimalism and questioned the legitimacy of state interventions, the sustainable use of space requires the active presence of the State. Its role is not only to preserve environmental legacies but also to provide an integrated view of the relations between demographic trends, economic activities and environmental dimensions.

The need for proactive action, particularly from the State, does not mean a return to the technocratic arrogance of the 60s and 70s. The visualization of a sustainable future and of reduced vulnerability should feed on participation from a variety of social actors. Planning for urban or regional space provides rare opportunities for dialogue and concertation aimed at adjusting ideal images and real images, and at making sure that public interests prevail over private interests.

In this regard, community participation is considered a key issue. In all international conferences and meetings realized within the framework of the International Decade for Natural Disasters Reduction (INDR), community participation is considered important in the prevention, preparedness and recovery stages ^[10]. For example, the Yokohama Strategy and Plan of Action for a Safer World ^[11] states that "Community involvement and their active participation should be encouraged in order to gain greater insight into the individual and collective perception of development and risk, and to have a clear understanding of the cultural and organizational characteristics of each society as well as of its behaviour and interactions with the physical and natural environment. This knowledge is of the utmost importance to determine those things which favor and hinder prevention and mitigation or encourage or limit the preservation of the environment for the development of future generations, and in order to find effective and efficient means to reduce the impact of disasters".

b) Reproductive health, gender equity and vulnerability

Promoting actions in the reproductive health domain as part of a national strategy can, in the medium and long range, help reduce vulnerability to natural disasters and social inequality ^[12]. These actions should be directed to the reduction of the gap between desires and outcomes with respect to the number of children. Since this gap mainly affects the poorest sectors, it creates a vicious circle between poverty and reproduction. The main commitment involves support to the provision of information, knowledge, and services for the poorest sectors of the population. Although this is the policy normally carried out in countries by international agencies such as UNFPA, disasters are opportunities to focus actions and detect deficiencies.

Efforts aimed at the reduction of vulnerability of Central American societies during the post-Mitch period would indeed benefit in a variety of ways from a greater investment in reproductive health and gender equity programs. The consensus expressed in the agreements of the Cairo and Beijing Summits, to which all Central American countries subscribed, is that reproductive health and family planning are basic human rights. Moreover, there is agreement that progress achieved in this domain has important implications for development through, inter alia, the formation of human capital.

With reference to reproductive rights, as shown previously, the poorest segments of the population have more children than they would prefer. This represents, among other things, a gap between family planning needs and actual access to information and services. This lack of access constitutes a breach in the fulfillment of reproductive rights, as a part of basic human rights. Every person has the right to choose how many children he or she wants to have and when to have them. This right is fully exercised by the better-off segments of society, but it continues to be an unaddressed aspiration of the poorest. Non-fulfillment of this right impacts most severely on women, who frequently are entirely responsible for all family-related decisions and concerns, including the responsibility of family regulation, child-raising and, increasingly, for the economic maintenance of the household. During emergency situations and/or disasters such as Hurricane Mitch, this situation and other manifestations of gender inequity become more acute.

For these reasons, it is urgent that countries take more effective action in the areas of reproductive health and gender equity, both in rural areas and cities, aimed at allowing the poor to implement their reproductive preferences for lesser fertility. This will produce, among other changes, a decrease in the rate of growth, and a reduction of migratory pressure towards the urban centers.

With respect to the impact of reproductive health on the formation of human capital, the existence of a well-prepared work force is one of the principal requirements in facing the challenges of economic competition in a globalized world. Reproductive health contributes to the improvement of human resources and thus to enhanced competitiveness. At the aggregate level, there are clear and empirically proven propositions that reproductive health is likely to contribute towards:

• The health of women and children (or the reduction of maternal and child mortality), through improved family planning and child spacing; this improvement in conditions of mothers and children, in turn, generates a saving for society in terms of health services;

• Planning and regulation of procreation contributes in various ways, at an aggregate level, to the improvement of those conditions which generate poverty, allowing for a reduction of intra-family expenditures and a greater family investment in educational activities;

• Competitiveness of a country is enhanced in the medium and long run, through improved education for the young and for women;

• Reproductive health contributes to gender equity and to the empowerment of women, allowing them to become better educated and to participate more, and under better conditions, in the labor market, to decide freely on their reproductive life, to have more opportunities and alternatives in their lives, and to make a contribution to economic progress, according to their real capabilities

All these elements are important in terms of improving national and local capabilities to prevent and mitigate the effects of natural disasters, at the family as well as at the national level. However, even if the positive effects of improvements in reproductive health are clear, their significance may vary in different types of society. One has to recognize, for example, that in the Central American context, the frequency of unstable marriages results in a more complex relation between reproductive health and development. Over one fifth of all households in Latin America are headed by women and, in the majority of cases, female heads do not have a stable partner to support them. In Nicaragua, for example, 35% of households are headed by women. The number of common-law relationships is greater than formal marriages (35 versus 26%), a fact which generally translates into greater instability of unions. During times of crisis and disasters, unstable compositions can create serious difficulties for families in terms of their ability to recover from disasters. Furthermore, in these situations, gender inequity becomes even more evident in unstable unions or female-headed households, making even greater demands on women.

c. Early warning information

During the pre-emergency phase, effective early warning ^[13] is considered as the key issue for disaster preparedness. The knowledge obtained through risk assessment research makes possible the identification of the degree to which different population groups, mainly those living in poverty, could be affected by natural hazards. Using this information, these groups can be informed in time and preventive measures can be taken.

In this regard, there is an important contribution to be made from the population field: the development and updating of integrated information systems directed to the identification of vulnerable areas or population groups in terms of both ecological deficiencies and socio-cultural characteristics. This system can also contribute to orienting migrant settlement patterns in the framework of preventive measures as well as to the generation of useful information for evaluating the effects of disaster-related damage and, particularly, their effects on women and children. Geographic information systems that combine a cartographic base with demographic and socio-economic information is thus becoming essential. Unfortunately, despite the increased technological development in this field, the case of Mitch has demonstrated (as can be seen in the appendix) that the Central America region needs a much stronger effort in this respect.

Mitch has also indicated that there is a need for the development of propositions for collection, processing and presentation of data for occurrences such as Mitch. This could facilitate the analysis of the impacts and help provide countries with adequate data resources, both during the emergency itself and in the post-emergency phase. The recommendation applies to the information on the effects on people, families, and homes, as well as to investigations carried out on shelters, currently characterized by a great lack of co-ordination and scientific rigor.

B. THE EMERGENCY PHASE

For example, in emergency actions on reproductive health issues, bearing in mind the likely occurrence of future disasters, it would be convenient to define an a priori methodology and approach, based on foreseeable needs, which take into account cultural dimensions of the population likely to be affected ^[14].

Possible actions would include:

• provision of emergency kits;
• support to studies of conditions in shelters, particularly in the case of women and, consequently, actions which may facilitate rapid response in relation to violence and sexual abuse;
• support to NGOs and other community-based instances working with women in crisis situations.

C. THE POST-EMERGENCY PHASE

Regarding reproductive health issues, following the difficulties caused and/or aggravated by the passage of Hurricane Mitch in Central America, specific actions should be implemented in two directions. On the one hand, efforts to reestablish pre-existing programs and to implement new programs detained by the disaster, should be undertaken promptly. This component is of the highest importance, given that reproductive health is not given priority status in times of crisis, as observed above. It would entail working closely with other national and international institutions for the recovery of the health sector, so that the components of reproductive health be can integrated as soon as possible, taking advantage of the opportunity to renew practices and redirect actions where convenient. Secondly, the framework of reproductive health actions has to be redefined proactively, incorporating into new programs all available knowledge on the relation between vulnerability, poverty, and reproductive health described earlier. In order to attain this goal, as pointed out in a UNFPA report on Nicaragua, it is necessary to "strengthen the process of decentralization, so that more egalitarian services directed to the needs of the population may be identified, discussed, and provided" (UNFPA-Nicaragua, 1999).

IV. Final considerations

The observations and analyses made throughout this paper suggest that specific contributions from the population area could help mitigate the effects of natural disasters. From the population standpoint, this document has identified three axes of attention which are particularly important in mitigating the impacts of natural disasters: spatial organisation, reproductive health and information systems. Actions in these domains however, cannot be isolated; in order to be effective they must be integrated within a broader conception of the development process and of the struggle against poverty.

Annex I

Information problems and needs

• Difficulties in evaluating the quality of the basic information on deaths and on affected population
  To date, the information available in relation to number of deaths caused directly by Hurricane Mitch and to the spatial distribution of the population is so aggregated that it can't be used for an in-depth analysis. Detailed and reliable figures on fatalities as well as numbers affected by specific patterns of settlement and socio-economic condition are unavailable. Additionally, official statistics present anomalies that are difficult to investigate at this time.

• Lack of co-ordination in post-Mitch data collection activities
  Various organisms have carried out census and surveys on shelters, using different methodologies and on different dates. There doesn't seem to be consensus in relation to the degree of reliability of these.

• Scarce cartographic data prior to and after Mitch
  With the exception of San Pedro Sula, a city which has geographically referenced information, there is a lack of cartographic information as well as of data on the population itself . This causes serious difficulties in defining the affected areas according to conditions of vulnerability. Even in San Pedro Sula, extensive use has not been made of available data from the demographic point of view.

• Lack of a post-Mitch research strategy which might allow quantifying the effects on demographic variables.
  There are no surveys on, for example, post-Mitch migration patterns, or on changes in reproductive behavior or on the impact of mortality.

Notes

8. Among the reasons which would justify a regional approach, the following can be cited: a) extreme natural phenomena do not respect national boundaries; b) there are economies of scale in attending problems from a regional perspective; c) regional initiatives favor coordination between countries on mitigation and prevention mechanisms; d) it helps draw attention to issues which are not clearly perceived when viewed at the national level. (SICA (1999).

9. The Mandate on Disaster Reduction, International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction IDNDR. International Program Forum, Geneva, 5-9 July 1999. http://www.idndr.org.forum/mandate.htm.

10. In the case of reconstruction and recovery activities it has been stressed that "the rationale for community involvement or the community-based approach is now well known: it is responsive to local needs, draws on local expertise, builds up local capacity, is multisectoral and equitable. By contrast, it is said, "top-down" programmes tend not to reach those worst affected by disaster, can be manipulated by political interests, are often inefficient, usually take a unisectoral approach and do not respond to people's real needs". ". (Twigg, J. And Greig, B. (1999).

11. Guidelines for Natural Disaster Prevention, Preparedness and Mitigation.World Conference on Natural Disaster Reduction, Yokohama, Japan, 23-27 May 1994 - http://www.idndr.org/docs/yokohama/toc.htm

12. In the case of Nicaragua, following Mitch, UNDP-UNFPA have developed a project on "Transition of Emergencies towards Rehabilitation and Development of the Northern Zone Municipalities affected by Hurricane Mitch". The UNFPA project component incorporates reproductive health service kits and mobile units for the development of IEC and service promotion activities. During a second stage, UNFPA will support actions related to the human settlement component (UNFPA Managua 1999).

13. See the Guiding Principles for Effective Early Warning by the Early Warning Programme of the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR). August 1997 International IDNDR Conference on Early Warning Systems for the Reduction of Natural Disasters. Potsdam, Germany, 7-11 September 1998 http://www.idndr.org/docs/early/guiding.htm#national

14. In the case of Nicaragua, following Mitch, UNDP-UNFPA have developed a project on "Transition of Emergencies towards Rehabilitation and Development of the Northern Zone Municipalities affected by Hurricane Mitch". The UNFPA project component incorporates reproductive health service kits and mobile units for the development of IEC and service promotion activities. During a second stage, UNFPA will support actions related to the human settlement component (UNFPA Managua 1999).

15. "Disaster prevention for the future... must involve issues and abilities of sustainable development, environmental management, science and technology, commerce and industry, and the encouragement of participatory forms of governance that contributes to social well-being and security. It can reflect no single professional culture, alone, because the natural hazards and risks to societies in the coming age will challenge, and call upon, collective abilities".Final Report of the Scientific and Technical Committee of the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) . IDNDR Online Documents, 1999. http://www.idndr.org/docs/stcrep.htm

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