DEVELOPMENT: Natural Disasters Take Heavy Toll

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 22 1999 (IPS) - Natural disasters in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean last year caused economic losses in developing countries amounting to 90 billion dollars, according to the United Nations.

The losses incurred in 1998 contrasted sharply with the previous year when natural calamities – hurricanes, floods and forest fires – caused damage estimated at 30 billion dollars.

A UN report released Thursday said that the hefty 60 billion dollar increase was due to the “extraordinary rise in the number and scale of natural disasters” last year.

The study said that, throughout the 1990s, economic losses attributed to natural catastrophes averaged more than 40 billion dollars a year. The devastation and suffering culminated in the death last year of more than 50,000 persons – killed in natural disasters worldwide.

Forest fires raged in Indonesia, Brazil and the Russian far east; the El Nino phenomenon caused historic levels of flooding in Latin America; unprecedented floods devastated large parts of Bangladesh and China; and the hurricanes “Georges” and “Mitch” caused massive destruction in the Caribbean region and Central America.

Additionallty, floods struck Somalia and Sudan, a cyclone killed 10,000 in Gujarat, India, and a tsunami smashed into Papua New Guinea.

“Natural disasters affecting populations already suffering from complex emergencies presented the international community with particularly formidable challenges,” the UN report said.

In the space of just one year Afghanistan alone was hit by three major earthquakes but international relief efforts were hampered by the ongoing conflict in that country, the remoteness of affected areas and harsh weather conditions.

Similar problems also existed in Sudan and Somalia, where ongoing civil wars hindered accesss to areas affected by drought and floods, the report said.

In view of the repeated occurrence of natural disasters requiring emergency assistance, Secretary-General Kofi Annan has sought an increase in emergency aid for 2000-2001.

Annan said that while emergencies continued to rise, contributions from donors had declined.

Of the total funding requirements of 2.8 billion dollars in 19904, for example, nearly 80 percent was made available by donors. By 1997, the funding requirements declined to 1.7 billion dollars but donor contributions amounted to only 62 percent of the targeted needs.

Addressing a meeting of the UN Economic and Social Council in Geneva last week, the Executive Director of the World Food Programme Catherine Bertini said that emergency aid had fallen far short of expectations. In general, she said, the preceding year “had been a very sad one.”

The share of resources committed for efforts in some countries emerging from conflict was “dismal” as compared to the totals sought through consolidated appeals by all UN agencies.

Bertini said that only 4 percent of the total sought was received for Tajikistan; 5.5 percent for Guinea-Bissau; and 13.5 percent for Burundi.

She warned that countries would slip back into the horrors of war unless they were helped with reconstruction.

Margareta Wahlstrom of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies told delegates that the reality was that most natural disasters were repetitive, and the hazards that triggered were location-specific.

Most had to deal with disaster as a norm, not an aberration. A sharecropper in northeast Brazil or a sharecropper squatting on the mud flats of the Ganges saw development largely in terms of coping with this year’s disaster and preparing for the next, she said.

“In fact, capacity-building in overcoming disasters has to be an ongoing activity – it must be an integral part of development,” she added.

Wahlstrom also warned that climate change, accompanied by increased urbanisation and rapid economic change, was likely to increase rather than decrease the severity and frequency of natural disasters.

Speaking on behalf of the 133 developing nations of the Group of 77, Sonia Elliott of Guyana said the figures on humanitarian crises were “staggering” – 50,000 people killed and more than 90 billion dollars in economic losses.

“The response machinery of the UN was not only severly strained in its capacity to cope but the financial resources available were clearly inadequate,” she said.

There was also a need to develop an understanding of the root causes of those crises in order to elaborate a strategy for treating them, “otherwise the trend would only worsen.”