Disaster and Development

The development process does not necessarily reduce vulnerability to natural hazards. Instead, it can unwittingly create new forms of vulnerability or exacerbate existing ones, impeding efforts to reduce poverty and promote growth, sometimes with tragic consequences. Win-win' solutions for securing sustainable development, reducing poverty and strengthening hazard resilience, therefore, need to be explicitly and actively sought, particularly as climate change looks set to increase the incidence of droughts and floods and the intensity of windstorms. Such solutions are best derived by integrating disaster risk reduction strategies and measures within the overall development framework, viewing disaster risk reduction as an integral component of the development process rather than as an end in its own right.