Disaster Prevention and Management: Volume 17 Number 3 Social Perspectives on Disasters in Southeast Asia

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ISSN 0965-3562

Volume 17 Number 3 2008

Disaster Prevention and Management An International Journal

Social perspectives on disasters in Southeast Asia Guest Editors: Dr Jean-Christophe Gaillard and Pauline Texier

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Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal

ISSN 0965-3562 Volume 17 Number 3 2008

Social perspectives on disasters in Southeast Asia Guest Editors Dr Jean-Christophe Gaillard and Pauline Texier

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Editorial advisory board ________________________________

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Guest editorial ___________________________________________

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Vulnerability, ‘‘innocent’’ disasters and the imperative of cultural understanding Terry Cannon _________________________________________________

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Floods in Jakarta: when the extreme reveals daily structural constraints and mismanagement Pauline Texier_________________________________________________

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Survival strategies to overcome inaagosto and nordeste in two coastal communities in Batangas and Mindoro, the Philippines Soledad Natalia M. Dalisay ______________________________________

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Living with increasing floods: insights from a rural Philippine community Jean-Christophe Gaillard, Michael R.M. Pangilinan, Jake Rom Cadag and Virginie Le Masson _________________________________________

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CONTENTS

CONTENTS

Poverty alleviation or poverty traps? Microcredits and vulnerability in Bangladesh

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Mareen Gehlich-Shillabeer________________________________________

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From emergency relief to livelihood recovery: lessons learned from post-tsunami experiences in Indonesia and India Philippe Re´gnier, Bruno Neri, Stefania Scuteri and Stefano Miniati______

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Tsunami-resilient communities’ development in Indonesia through educative actions: lessons from the 26 December 2004 tsunami Julie Morin, Benjamin De Coster, Raphae¨l Paris, Franck Lavigne, Franc¸ois Flohic and Damien Le Floch ______________________________

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EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Professor D. Alexander School of Science and the Environment, Coventry University, UK

Professor E.L. Quarantelli Research Professor, Disaster Research Center, University of Delaware, USA

E.E. Alley, OBE Consultant, UNDRO K. Cassidy Major Hazards Unit, Health & Safety Executive, UK Professor Hayim Granot Mass Emergencies Project, School of Social Work, Bar-Ilan University, Israel

Dr A. Redmond North Staffordshire Trauma Centre, UK Professor M. Seaward Environmental Sciences, University of Bradford, UK

Dr W. Gunn President, Mediterranean Burns Club, Switzerland Professor T. Kletz University of Bradford, UK Dr J. Levinson Israel National Police Headquarters, Jerusalem, Israel Professor Douglas Paton School of Psychology, University of Tasmania, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia

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Professor Denis Smith Department of Management, University of Glasgow, UK Dr W. Stahel The Geneva Association, Switzerland Professor David Weir Liverpool Hope University, UK Professor D. Wilhite School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska, USA

Guest editorial Natural hazards and disasters in Southeast Asia The scope of damage brought by the 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami served as a powerful reminder that Southeast Asia is one of the most prone regions for disasters identified with natural hazards. The EMDAT database compiled by the Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED, 2008) lists 818 disastrous events which killed at least more than ten people, hindered the life of more than 100 individuals, or required international aid between 1900 and 2007. Since then, the first eight years of the twenty-first century have already recorded 407 events or a sharp increase in the occurrence of disasters. The accuracy of these data may be questionable, especially for the first half of the century when disastrous events may not have been recorded in the same manner as they are today. However, it is our contention that the missing accounts would not reverse the disaster-occurrence increasing trend. The recurrence of disasters in Southeast Asia is accentuated by the large scope of human casualties and economic damage wrought by each event. Between 1900 and 2007, disasters identified with natural phenomena claimed the lives of 342,772 people in the region. A total of 290 million other individuals were affected and economic damage are estimated at US$46 billion. The present editorial is a short attempt to review existing paradigms on disasters identified with natural hazards. It should enable the reader to critically assess the contribution of the present volume to our understanding of disasters in the Southeast Asian region. The dominant hazard-focused viewpoint Disasters have long been considered from the sole angle of natural hazards through the disciplines of seismology, volcanology, climatology, geomorphology, hydrology, etc. Until the mid-twentieth century, responsibility for the occurrence of non-technical, non-social disasters was therefore attributed to external natural forces or to gods’ retribution. The extent of damages was similarly imputed to the magnitude and frequency of the physical phenomenon or to the whims of angry, vindictive, or inebriated deities. In a letter addressed to Voltaire, J.-J. Rousseau was the first known to involve man’s responsibility in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake that killed around 100,000 people (e.g. Dynes, 1997). However, it was only in the 1940s that the human dimension of disasters began to be widely accepted. Indeed, the works of Gilbert F. White on the Mississippi River basin were the first in-depth investigations into the human response to natural hazards (White, 1945). The works of White inspired generations of social scientists and served as the basis for what has eventually been called the “dominant” paradigm in the disaster literature. Yet this dominant view still explicitly or implicitly acknowledges the responsibility of nature and hazardous phenomena in explaining disaster occurrence. In line with White’s work, it has been very common to argue that individuals choose to adjust or not to the threat of natural phenomena, or hazards, which are rare, in time, and extreme, in magnitude. The choice of adjustment basically depends on how people perceive rare and extreme threats and the associated risks for themselves. An individual or a society with a low perception of risk, it is argued, is likely to adjust poorly to the threat. On the other hand, people with a high risk perception are likely to behave in a positive way in the face of natural threats. Risk

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perception is different from the simple knowledge that a hazard exists in the environment and instead refers to the possibility people give that a hazard will affect them (e.g. Kates, 1971). In a landmark book entitled “The environment as hazard”, Burton et al. (1993) propose a society-based classification of adaptations and adjustments to natural hazards depending on people’s perception of Nature’s threat. This classification distinguishes unconscious biological and cultural adaptations from incidental or purposeful adjustments. It contrasts traditional societies, with an alleged poor capability of facing natural hazards, with industrial Western societies whose adjustment is more effective albeit still not perfect. The perception-adjustment paradigm also spread to the institutions (e.g. national governments, international organizations, consultant agencies) in charge of managing natural hazards and disasters. In the face of natural threats and inadequate behavioral response, structural and technical solutions (e.g. dams and dikes to control floods, electronic devices to detect the occurrence of hazards, hazard mapping) are preferred along with evacuation plans and information campaigns to raise people’s perception of hazardous phenomena. The influence and recommendations emanating from the perception-adjustment paradigm were evident at the advent of the 1990s International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR). The United Nations at this time pushed for an increased financial, technological and experience transfer from industrialized countries, where it was argued volcanic eruptions do not cause much damage, to developing states, where volcanoes wreak havoc (Lechat, 1990). The alternative social perspective This dominant perception-adjustment paradigm was first challenged in the late 1970s with several strong critiques of White’s ideas (Waddell, 1977; Torry, 1979). Most of the critiques challenge the argument that people have a range of choices to adjust to the threat of a natural hazard. Drawing on cases from the economically developing world, scholars such as O’Keefe et al. (1976) and Hewitt (1983) argue that people’s behavior in the face of natural hazards is constrained by social, economic and political forces beyond their control. Political neglect, social marginalization and difficulty in accessing resources compel powerless individuals to live in hazard-prone areas without appropriate physical and social protection. This perspective emphasizes people’s vulnerability or their susceptibility to suffer from damage should natural hazards occur. A set of indicators reflect the vulnerability of disaster victims (Cannon, 1994). Victims of natural hazards are frequently disproportionally drawn from marginal social groups such as women, children, elderly and the disabled. Vulnerable people are also those with limited or precarious incomes (low wages, informal jobs, lack of savings) that reduce their ability to protect themselves in the face of natural hazards (location of home, type of housing, knowledge of protection measures). Vulnerability also results from inadequate social protection (health insurance, health services, construction rules, prevention measures, etc.) and limited social capital (solidarity networks). It is thus crucial to consider both people’s vulnerability and its root causes which lie in their daily and unique local contexts (Wisner, 1993). Natural hazards are then viewed as a highlighter or amplifier of daily hardship and everyday emergencies rather than as an extreme and rare phenomena (Hewitt, 1983; Maskrey, 1989). Recommendations on how to mitigate people’s vulnerability in the face of natural hazards are fundamentally social, political and economic in nature, e.g. poverty

reduction, fair access to land and resources, better societal protection through government investments in social services. Specific risk management measures are viewed through community-based disaster risk management which underlines people’s participation in hazard, vulnerability and risk assessment (e.g. Anderson and Woodrow, 1989; Bankoff et al., 2004). Such activities have been championed during the 1994 International Conference on Disaster Reduction held in Yokohama, Japan, by the United Nations which marked a change in international disaster management policies (Nations Unies, 1995). More recently, the “Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) 2005-2015” agreed upon by the representatives of 168 countries which participated to the World Conference on Disaster Reduction, held in Kobe, Hyogo, Japan, in January 2005, further stresses the importance of: . making disaster risk reduction a priority; . knowing the risks (in its whole dimension not only its hazard-related dimension) and enhancing early warning system; . building understanding and awareness using local and scientific knowledge; . reducing the underlying, hazard-independent, factors of risk; and . strengthening disaster preparedness for effective response at all levels. This ten-year agenda for disaster risk reduction involves blending both hazard-related and non hazard-related measures. It sets the threat from disasters beyond the sole dimension of natural hazards and locates it clearly within people’s vulnerability in the face of nature’s threat. It recommends culturally sensitive mitigation measures which consider the cultural, social, economic and political context. The HFA further emphasizes the importance of people’s livelihoods and asserts that: natural hazards cannot be prevented, but it is possible to reduce their impacts by reducing the vulnerability of people and their livelihoods (United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, 2005, p. 4).

Contribution of the present DPM volume The present volume of Disaster Prevention and Management (DPM) draws on the alternative social approach and takes forward some of the key issues of disaster management. It compiles original papers which were prepared for a panel of the 5th EuroSEAS conference held in Naples, Italy, between 12 and 15 September 2007. It includes contributions from the academe as well as from the practitioner realm, notably NGOs, from Europe and Southeast Asia. It encompasses case studies from rural and urban settings in Southeast Asia as well as conceptual reflections. All the papers presented in this special issue of DPM lie within the Hyogo Framework of Action (HFA). In an invited opening paper, Terry Cannon first explores the concept of vulnerability and suggests that some disasters may be “innocent”, yet still entirely socially constructed, in the sense that people may choose to live in hazard-prone places just for the sake of their livelihoods. He insists that policy makers should pay particular attention to the cultural and rational explanations for these behaviors which may seem irrational from the outside. As stated in the HFA and in line with T. Cannon’s social explanation of disasters, a better understanding of the risks in their whole dimension is a prerequisite for efficient and sustainable disaster risk reduction strategies. It is particularly crucial to address the

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root causes of people’s vulnerability in the face of natural hazards. In this volume, Pauline Texier shows that the scope of damage wrought by the February 2007 flooding episode in the Indonesian capital does not relate to the intensity of rainfall but traces its origin to the severe vulnerability of informal communities living in flood-prone informal settlements. She points out that risk reduction requires a focus on the underlying, hazard-independent factors of people’s vulnerability. This is another priority of the HFA. The HFA also stresses that another way to sustainable risk management is to enhance local and traditional capacities in the face of natural hazards. In this issue, Ma Soledad Dalisay and JC Gaillard et al. tackle the strategies displayed by Filipino people to cope with recurrent drought and flooding. They suggest that coping strategies are rooted in adjustments in daily life and do not rely on extraordinary measures to face extreme natural hazards. They underline the need for increasing people indigenous capacities in the event of disastrous events. On the other hand, local capacities may be hindered by poorly adapted development and disaster risk reduction policies. Mareen Gehlich-Shillabeer, who investigates the real impact of microcredit on flood-affected communities in Bangladesh, militates for a careful assessment of the local context, especially environmental, in which microcredit is promulgated. Indeed, it seems that resorting to microcredit as a strategy to cope with natural hazards leads often to higher indebtedness, thus entrapping flood-victims in chronic poverty. Disaster risk reduction is often a priority for NGOs. Philippe Re´gnier and co-authors document a NGO initiative to spur livelihood recovery in Tamil Nadu, India, and Aceh, Indonesia, following the 26 December 2004 tsunami. By analysing the way sustainable livelihood recovery assistance has been implemented through microeconomic initiatives, they emphasize the difficulty to conciliate post-disaster reconstruction, vulnerability reduction and development necessities. They address crucial issues to sustainable post-disaster initiatives. The HFA further suggests building understanding and awareness using local scientific knowledge. In line with this objective, the paper presented by Julie Morin and co-authors exposes a project implemented in Java, Indonesia, to increase people’s capacities to cope with tsunami hazard. It fosters increasing collaboration between NGOs and scientists for diffusing accurate information on natural hazards and strengthening disaster preparedness among threatened communities. It also suggests methods to enhance and better implement early warning systems. This special issue of Disaster Prevention and Management is our contribution to achieving the goals of the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015. It contributes to increasing our understanding of the social dimension of disasters in Southeast Asia. Hopefully many more studies will build on this contribution and further address how to enhance disaster risk reduction in the region. Jean-Christophe Gaillard Universite´ de Grenoble, Grenoble, France, and Pauline Texier Universite´ Paris 7 – Denis Diderot, Montre´al, Paris, France References Anderson, M. and Woodrow, P. (1989), Rising from the Ashes: Development Strategies in Times of Disasters, Westview Press, Boulder, CO.

Bankoff, G., Frerks, G. and Hilhorst, D. (Eds) (2004), Mapping Vulnerability: Disasters, Development and People, Earthscan, London. Burton, I., Kates, R.W. and White, G.F. (1993), The Environment as Hazard, The Guilford Press, New York, NY. Cannon, T. (1994), “Vulnerability analysis and the explanation of ‘natural’ disasters”, in Varley, A. (Ed.), Disasters, Development and Environment, J. Wiley & Sons, Chichester, pp. 13-30. Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters (2008), EM-DAT: The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database, Universite´ Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, available at: www.cred.be/emdat (accessed 1 March 2008). Dynes, R.R. (1997), “The Lisbon earthquake in 1755: contested meanings in the first modern disaster”, Preliminary paper No. 255, Disaster Research Center, Newark, DE. Hewitt, K. (1983), “The idea of calamity in a technocratic age”, in Hewitt, K. (Ed.), The Risks and Hazards, Series No. 1, Allen & Unwin Inc., Boston, MA, pp. 3-32. Kates, R.W. (1971), “Natural hazard in human ecological perspective: hypotheses and models”, Economic Geography, Vol. 47 No. 3, pp. 438-51. Lechat, M.F. (1990), “The international decade for natural disaster reduction: background and objectives”, Disasters, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 1-6. Maskrey, A. (1989), Disaster Mitigation: A Community Based Approach, Development Guidelines No. 3, Oxfam, Oxford. Nations Unies (1995), “Strate´gie et plan d’action de Yokohama pour un monde plus suˆr: directives pour la pre´vention des catastrophes naturelles, la pre´paration aux catastrophes et l’atte´nuation de leur effets”, Confe´rence Mondiale sur la Pre´vention des Catastrophes Naturelles, Yokohama, Japon, 23-27 mai 1994, United Nations, New York, NY/Geneva. O’Keefe, P., Westgate, K. and Wisner, B. (1976), “Taking the naturalness out of natural disasters”, Nature, Vol. 260 No. 5552, pp. 566-7. Torry, W.I. (1979), “Hazards, hazes and holes: a critique of the environment as hazard and general reflections on disaster research”, Canadian Geographer, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 368-83. United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (2005), Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disaster: An Introduction to the Hyogo Framework for Action, United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, Geneva. Waddell, E. (1977), “The hazards of scientism: a review article”, Human Ecology, Vol. 5 No. 1, pp. 69-76. White, G.F. (1945), “Human adjustment to floods: a geographical approach to the flood problem in the United-States”, Research Paper No. 29, Department of Geography, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL. Wisner, B. (1993), “Disaster vulnerability: scale, power, and daily life”, Geojournal, Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 127-40.

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Terry Cannon University of Greenwich, London, UK Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to make an argument that there are different types of social construction of disasters. Design/methodology/approach – The focus is on disasters triggered by natural hazards. Findings – It is now widely accepted that disasters are a product of a natural hazard having an impact on a vulnerable population. But the value of the concept of vulnerability is in danger of becoming less meaningful because it is removed from the political and economic processes that generate some vulnerabilities. On the other hand, there are some types of disasters that are relatively “innocent”, in the sense that people live in places that are exposed to risk for purposes of access to their livelihood, and not because social forces or power relations have forced them to live there, or made some groups more vulnerable than others. Practical implications – If it is the case that some vulnerability is “innocent”, then forms of explanation are needed of people’s willingness to expose themselves to risk that go beyond the “strong” forms of social construction (where power relations are a key factor in generating the social construction of disasters). Instead, it is essential to examine “cultural” and psychological explanations of people’s behaviour, including an understanding of group behaviour, religious beliefs and other aspects that often distinguish the perspective on risk taken by “insiders” compared with the supposedly rational and policy-oriented approach of “outsiders” who see it as their role to help reduce disaster risks. Originality/value – The discussion of different types of social construction of disasters is original. Debate on the need to include analysis of cultural and psychological aspects in disaster risk reduction is not very well developed and, according to this paper, is of absolutely crucial importance in reducing the impact of natural hazards. Keywords Disasters, Hazards, Population Paper type Viewpoint

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In this paper the intention is to explore some of the complications inherent in the idea that disasters (triggered by natural hazards) are socially constructed. The notion that disasters related to natural hazards are themselves “natural” still tends to dominate the media and popular understanding. But in much of the analysis over the past 30 years, this position has been significantly undermined (e.g. Hewitt, 1983; Blaikie et al., 1994; Wisner et al., 2004). There is now much greater acceptance of the idea that disasters occur only when a vulnerable population “gets in the way” of a hazard[1]. Disasters may be triggered by natural hazards, but can be considered largely a product of This paper has drawn on contributions made in 2006 to a discussion on the internet e-list RADIX (Vol. 32 No. 3): available at: www.radixonline.org/

processes involving economic, political and social factors (which for convenience will be called simply social factors). In this sense, all disasters are socially constructed. But also there is a wish to explore the idea that there are different forms of social construction, some of which could be considered “innocent”. The purpose of this exploration is to deal with this problem: some disasters affect people who have not been placed at risk of hazard impacts by exploitative processes. In this sense, such “innocent” disasters do not involve a class-based division of people into more or less vulnerable groups: people are simply put at risk through class-neutral socially-constructed processes. Mostly this involves them living in dangerous locations because of the benefits they gain for livelihood activities by living in that place[2]. This does not mean that they are not also made “vulnerable” in the aftermath of a hazard impact: there may well be political components of the relief, recovery and restoration process that are driven by the exploitative, inappropriate or incompetent behaviour of those who supposedly arrive to help or “redevelop” after the disaster. But in terms of where people live and why they live there, we need to explore the idea that many people may live “at risk” because they want to. In some places, there is evidence of a significant degree of choice involved in living in dangerous places. The key concept involved in this paradigm shift has been that of vulnerability. This is used analytically as a means to show that people are exposed to risk because of particular personal (or household, or community) characteristics that make them likely to suffer harm. Generally, in the vulnerability paradigm these characteristics are often conflated with poverty and “marginalization”, and often with pre-assumed stereotypical groups (typically the elderly, women, and children). The term used is often expanded to social vulnerability, in order to emphasise the causal processes related to economic, political and social factors. But there are problems for disaster analysis if vulnerability is regarded as more or less the same as poverty. The specific characteristics of hazard risks, and factors that may be different from poverty, will be ignored or played down. Vulnerability must be understood as people being vulnerable to something – natural hazards of various types – and having various social characteristics that make them likely to be harmed by a particular hazard to a greater or lesser extent (Cannon, 2006, 2008). However, the term vulnerability has become so vague and abused that it is in danger of losing its analytical value. Like the term sustainability, it has become a buzz word lacking precision. It is often also de-politicised, so that we see reports of a disaster in which “the vulnerable were hit badly”, in a post hoc accommodation with the banal and obvious. As with the term poverty, we find that the causes are not properly discussed, just in case that might require a radical shift in the way that assets and wealth are owned and controlled in the world. So although this use of the term may acknowledge that vulnerability is socially-constructed, the form of social construction involved is removed from the crucial power relations that are involved. Another way that vulnerability is used is much more political. In this version, there is explicit acknowledgement that the factors that create people’s vulnerability (and the focus is much more on people) are a product of power relations: the functioning of economic and political systems. There is also recognition that some groups of people are more vulnerable than others: power relations have led to a situation in which some

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people are more likely than others to be affected by a natural hazard. This is a “strong” version of socially-constructed vulnerability, and is obvious to many in the impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans and neighbouring states. It is the type that we sought to model in the PAR (Pressure and Release) diagram (and especially the more complex “animation” of socially-constructed vulnerability in the Access model) in At Risk, (Wisner et al., 2004; Blaikie et al., 1994). Crucial to this version of vulnerability analysis is that it should be predictive. By analysing the particular vulnerability characteristics of people in a location that is exposed to known hazards, it should be possible to demonstrate which groups are more or less vulnerable. This in turn should enable risk reduction measures, especially those that reduce the impact of economic and political processes that are generating vulnerability. Vulnerability analysis that is not predictive is worth little in terms of reducing the risk of disaster. Problems arise with this, as hinted at the start, because in some disasters people are not at risk of hazards as a result of being “made” vulnerable as in this “strong” version. They are vulnerable because they have chosen to live in locations that are exposed to particular hazards, usually because it has afforded them a livelihood that is essential to their survival. It can be argued that this is partly the case with the Indian Ocean tsunami. It was a relatively “innocent” disaster, in the sense that “strong” social construction (of the class-based socio-economic type) was not significant. There was relative uniformity in the immediate impact on the people: in general, inequality had not made some people more vulnerable than others. Compared with New Orleans, for example, the social construction of vulnerability in the tsunami disaster was not strongly related to class or race issues. However, as in New Orleans, class and ethnicity played a significant factor in the relief and recovery process: in that sense there was a politically-constructed vulnerability to what happened in the aftermath. In suggesting that it was relatively innocent, what is meant is that social processes were relatively unimportant in determining the immediate impact: a “guilty” disaster (like Katrina) is one where there are identifiable economic and social processes that determine (predictably, in advance) that some groups are going to be affected much more than others. In the tsunami, the majority of people affected were located on the coast by virtue of needing to pursue a livelihood; their need to live in this location was not specifically generated by an exploitative or (social/class) differentiating economic system. YES, there were areas that were made exposed by mangrove destruction, YES some fishing people were forced to engage in more dangerous fishing (and therefore at risk in cyclones) because of competition from commercial ships and pressure from the boat renters. But by and large there would be many people living there under any political-economic system, simply because of the opportunities the coastline provided. This does not mean that the disaster is natural; it is still socially constructed in the “weak” sense that it affects people because economic processes have led to people seeking their livelihood in a potentially dangerous location. The same often applies to flood plains and oases[3]. It is even the case that many people in the Sahel and other semi-arid areas of Africa etc. are at risk because they balance the good years with the bad years. They survive collectively and in aggregate, and over history we see the outcome of that survival: people are still living in those

difficult locations. But long before colonial agriculture (which it can be argued brought “guilt” in the form of “strong” social construction of their exposure to drought risk), those socio-environments were inhabited by people who were inherently vulnerable to the problems of that environment[4]. Before the modern era, the arrival of the media, and notions of international social responsibility, such systems just were. The fact that versions of them are still there is evidence that they are resilient, and that what we see in the enormous suffering in recent drought and famine in many parts of Africa has been the norm of human existence before the modern era, and was socially “innocent”. I am interested in exploring the different degrees and types of social construction. A simple model may help to explain, using a spectrum with an extreme case at each end. In case A, people live in an area at risk from a natural hazard because they just do: they “have to” – for the sake of their livelihoods. No socially-differentiated system has made them live there – it is just what humans do as we have settled the earth. Such cases are socially constructed but relatively “innocent”. The notion of innocence applies to the type of social construction: there is no agent, class, institution or other actor involved that can be “blamed”. However, while this may be true of the immediate impact of the hazard, it is entirely possible that economic and political forces that differentiate between various groups can have an impact on the relief and recovery: in this sense, people can experience “strong” socially-constructed vulnerability after the impact of the hazard, as mentioned above in the context of the tsunami. A second or type B situation would be one where people live in areas at risk from a hazard, but their opportunity to live safely is constrained or made impossible by the class (or ethnic, gender, or other) social structure that has emerged in that location or country. It is entirely possible under such social construction that richer people are also victims, perhaps because they have built bigger and heavier houses. But in general it is poorer people who are more likely to be affected. It is also possible that the trigger hazard will have a relatively “equivalent” impact on all social groups: that could be the outcome of specific forms of social construction of the hazard impact. It is also entirely possible that the post-impact situation will involve different types of social differentiation in the relief and recovery process There are probably no “pure” cases of either of these. Nor is it really a spectrum, but rather a set of complex inter-related social-economic-political and “cultural” factors that may have different effects before and after a hazard arrives. But if we simplified this to a spectrum, the tsunami may have been closer to the “innocent” end of it. So might the Pakistan earthquake of 2005, or that in Bam (Iran) earthquake of 2003, or the India 1993 Latur earthquake (which killed rich people as well as poor). By contrast, Katrina and New Orleans, and the Izmit (Turkey, 1999) earthquake are at the very “guilty” end of the spectrum in the sense that the deaths and suffering were largely determined by social, economic and political factors of inequality, exploitation and corruption: there are entities that can be “blamed”. The reason why this is thought to be important is that it is not enough to “blame” all disasters on “class” or political causation: in some cases this would not help to determine useful policies. Of course, for Bam it would have been useful for the government to ensure that hospitals and schools etc. were constructed to an earthquake code. But in that particular event this would apparently not have saved the many lives that were lost in the unsafe adobe houses. Should the government have

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embarked on a reconstruction or retrofitting of the vast majority of houses in most of the city? Yes in a sense, that would be the ideal. But then what of all the other similar towns in Iran, many also at risk... Such a policy is not contemplated even in the richest of countries, though it would be the best way to save lives in earthquakes. In Turkey, the situation was different: large numbers of apartment blocks collapsed that should have been following building codes: corruption and poor construction were the main killers. On top of this is the relatively “innocent” factor that people move into dangerous places (e.g. Florida and California) in the knowledge that they are at risk of serious hazards. This is arguably not a result of class/political or social prejudice. In California it could be argued that people are “socially structured” to move there to gain a livelihood, but we also know that most people ignore (or are unconcerned about) the very evident risks. People are more likely to move to Florida for a retirement home, although there are many safer alternatives in other parts of the United States. By and large the retirees are aware of the risks. It is felt that we should be paying much more attention to “cultural” and psychological forms of social construction in terms of their risky behaviour. This is of course also a form of social construction that is relatively “innocent” in class/political terms. Such behaviour (a willingness to accept risk) is observed in a wide range of countries, peoples and income groups, including many poorer people. People trade-off the risks they face with the benefits of their livelihood and often their desire to live in a place they are accustomed to: in other words “culture” and psychology are powerful factors that can make people willing to live in peril. This is also equally a part of the social construction of disaster (the disasters that may happen are not natural, but it is difficult to argue that there are “blameable actors” involved in the same way as with New Orleans or Turkey). There has been recent evaluation of Red Cross policies for community vulnerability assessments carried out to try to encourage people to reduce their exposure to hazards. Of the hundreds of such studies done around the world (by the Red Cross/Red Crescent and many NGOs), very few people highlight the risks they face from natural hazards. Instead they give priority to health issues, disease, water, security/crime, and traffic deaths. They are often willing to live in areas where there are known hazards, and may be reluctant to respond to warnings that they are in danger. In most of these cases, they are in the middle of the spectrum outlined above: their livelihoods lead them to live in dangerous places, but it is not always or entirely because they have been “forced” to live there by social/economic/political forces of exploitation or discrimination. Much of the poverty we witness is “normal”: it is a characteristic of the types of livelihoods that produce a surplus in some years and no surplus in others. It is doubtful that people in the Sahel, or much of Africa, or Asia, were ever free of disaster before colonization or globalization. In other words, even if modern economic and political processes have increased their vulnerability (to drought, floods, etc), they have existed for hundreds or thousands of years in socially-constructed danger that is not a result of external exploitation. Their experience of disaster (and inadequate relief and recovery) may well be worse now, but it is more politically “innocent” than the international contrast in wealth and poverty suggests.

What is aimed at is a better framework for analysing all factors of social causation. This should enable us to match the specific analysis of particular disasters with a predictive approach to the process of causation. This would allow us to allocate different types of responsibility (e.g. to “communities”/grass roots/popular movements; to governments, to donors, to landlords, to corporations etc.) and devise policies that are relevant. And of course in many cases policies will not be of any use: policies are implemented (or not) by those who have power. In many cases the causes of disasters involve people/institutions/corporations/governments who are uninterested in protecting people from harm. In such cases what is required is grass roots action supported by various forms of solidarity. If the use of the term “innocent” to raise a discussion of these issues is too distracting or misleading, then it is all right to leave it out. But we do need a discussion of the issues that one is trying to indicate by the use of that term: if the term itself does not help then it can go. The point of this is that we need two types of policies and/or social participatory actions to reduce vulnerability. The first type of actions would reduce the impact of the political and economic system on different groups and their levels of vulnerability. This is the classic “strong” or created vulnerability – far from innocent, and generated by the way power systems operates for the benefit of a minority. The second type relies on the actions of people’s self-organisation, with policies and resource reallocations that deal with the fact that some locations are at risk. For these more “innocent” types of risk, people are living there through choice or livelihood needs, and are not fundamentally forced to live there because of the power system. Improving their security means persuading people to act against what they think are their own interests, or denying their culture or psychological preferences. This is notoriously difficult to achieve. Now of course there is muddling between the two systems, and undoubtedly there are more and more people having to live in places that are at risk because of power systems and population growth. For example, people in Luzon (Philippines) are being forced to move inland and upland to live on hill-slopes as land becomes scarce elsewhere. Nothing is done to help reallocate land holdings, so forcing people to occupy land “illegally” in dangerous places. Unless we understand that some disasters (or some aspects of disasters) are “relatively” innocent, we may be seeking to lay blame that is inappropriate, or to suggest policies that are not going to work. This argument does not make disasters any more “natural”: they are still entirely socially constructed. The issue is whether some are worse because people happen to be living in the way of the hazard, or have been put there with little or no choice by the power system. What is the extent that the power system has to be changed compared with the “innocent” factors? Changing the power system may not be the only thing that has to happen. We need to pay far more attention to what could loosely be called “cultural” and psychological factors, including what some might regard as fatalism, religion, group behaviour, psychology. We must also face up to the gap in expectations between insiders and outsiders: those who are affected by disasters, and those from outside who come to “help”. Most “outsiders” consider that we have to reduce people’s vulnerability to hazards. Most “insiders” (especially poor people) do not distinguish between the shocks (floods, cyclones, earthquakes etc.) and their normal everyday lives. Part of this mismatch is the outsider having concerns that are not the same as the

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insider: outsiders have a supposedly rational approach to risk reduction that assumes the same logic among people who have been affected by disasters before or who know that they can be. It is in the area of the “cultural” and psychological (behavioural) processes that we may find reasons why people have different priorities, and why they do not do what “we” want them to do. Possible tools in this would be Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (where we could examine the way that peer group behaviour affects people’s individual priorities in that hierarchy). Understanding group behaviour (e.g. how do individuals behave, prioritise, make decisions for their own safety, in the context of their perceptions of what others will also do) seems to be absolutely crucial. Game theory may be a useful tool for this. It is also essential to understand concepts of fatalism and “religious” beliefs that affect individual and group behaviour, and the circumstances in which these beliefs are dissolved by other processes: they seem to be sensitive to material changes that demonstrate that fate can be affected by human action: in other words, is fatalism used as a way to negotiate the experience of risk when the material conditions to reduce risk are absent? And does this relate to group behaviour: will an individual change his/her attitude when it is clear that they can do so without fear of being considered strange or irreverent by their peers? These considerations have huge implications for “outsiders” behaviour – what does it mean for policy, funding, and what is most useful, what is possible, what is impossible or unlikely to work. The implications of this for the way that outsiders and insiders behave with each other and what they attempt to do for risk reduction may need to change quite radically as a result. Notes 1. A great deal of the natural science work done on disasters is carried out by specialists in relation to the particular types of hazard in their narrow scientific area (e.g. geophysicists on earthquakes, climatologists on hurricanes/typhoons). Little of this science has much awareness of social processes involved, and it is rare that it makes any attempt to construct a science of disasters in which the social and natural processes can be understood in combination. 2. The problem is illustrated in Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami by the government’s efforts to restrict people’s rights to resettle by the beach. This was a major detrimental factor for the fishing families that find a beach location essential to their livelihood, and who want to live again in the same places. 3. Jackson (2006), a seismologist, has argued that people put themselves at risk of earthquakes because they live in oases and arid places where water supplies are guided to the surface (enabling agriculture and settlement) by the fault systems that cause earthquakes. The risk of earthquakes may or may not be known, but the point is that the location is not a result of an oppressive or exploitative process of social construction, merely the “weak” social construction of needing a livelihood. 4. In many cases even when there was social differentiation, this was not fixed and rigid through time, and the cycles of drought and grassy years could produce cycles of “rich” and “poor” families among the pastoralists. So it is difficult to interpret it in the same way as the classes that emerge in much more rigid forms in capitalism and feudalism.

References Blaikie, P., Cannon, T., Davis, I. and Wisner, B. (1994), At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability and Disasters, Routledge, London. Cannon, T. (2006), “Vulnerability analysis, livelihoods and disasters”, in Ammann, W., Dannemann, S. and Vulliet, L. (Eds), Coping with Risks due to Natural Hazards in the 21st Century, Taylor & Frances/Balkema, Leiden. Cannon, T. (2008), “Reducing people’s vulnerability to natural hazards: communities and resilience”, research paper, WIDER, United Nations University-WIDER, Helsinki. Hewitt, K. (Ed.) (1983), Interpretations of Calamity: From the Viewpoint of Human Ecology, Unwin Hyman, London. Jackson, J. (2006), “Oases with a loud tick”, Times Higher Education Supplement, 17 February. Wisner, B., Blaikie, P., Cannon, T. and Davis, I. (2004), At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability and Disasters, 2nd ed., Routledge, London. Corresponding author Terry Cannon can be contacted at: [email protected]

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Pauline Texier UMR 8586 Prodig, UFR GHSS, Universite´ Paris 7 – Denis Diderot, Montre´al, 2e`me e´tage, Dalle des Olympiades, Paris, France Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the root causes of disaster vulnerability in Jakarta, to highlight the strategies and implications of official policies, and to consider alternatives for vulnerability mitigation. The February 2007 floods which struck Jakarta emphasized the extreme vulnerability of informal poor communities and the inefficiency of the disaster management policy set up by the Indonesian government. Design/methodology/approach – Detailed field investigations were undertaken before, during and after the February 2007 flood event in several informal districts of Jakarta to collect secondary data and conduct interviews with the population and some stakeholders of the disaster management scene. Findings – Human factors are dominant in explaining the magnitude of the 2007 flooding episode. Urbanization is partially responsible for the extent of the flooding by waterproofing the soils. Yet floods do not strike the inhabitants of formal and informal settlements in the same way. People from the poor illegal areas are the most affected. Their behaviour and coping strategies during the crisis are not due to a low perception of risk, but rather to some daily and non-hazard-related constraints which are not taken into account by the government. Practical implications – To prevent increasing vulnerability among these communities, it is essential to refocus disaster management strategies on a daily pattern and to integrate them within a global development framework, to de-marginalize them in terms of access to resources (public services, economic values), and to favoir empowerment. Originality/value – It is imperative to focus on poverty reduction and to develop economic projects aimed at treating the causes of vulnerability. Keywords Floods, Stakeholder analysis, Disasters, Indonesia Paper type Research paper

Disaster Prevention and Management Vol. 17 No. 3, 2008 pp. 358-372 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0965-3562 DOI 10.1108/09653560810887284

Introduction Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, is a coastal conurbation of 20 million inhabitants. The monsoonal climate brings very intensive rainfall each rainy season (typically between the months of October and April). Jakarta is located within a deltaic plain where 13 rivers empty into the Jakarta bay. Jakarta’s site is therefore “naturally” highly prone to flooding such as that experienced in 1996, 2002 and 2007. Flooding is today worsened by a high subsidence rate due to the city weight and water extractions (Abidin et al., 2001; Hirose et al., 2001). The floods of February 2007 were the worst in the history of the Indonesian capital. Almost 60 percent of the urban area was affected (Figure 1). Fifty eight to 74 people died and a total of 400,000 people were affected. In Kampung Melayu, located near the main Ciliwung River, the water level reached as high as 11.20 meters from the thalweg[1]. Floodwaters destroyed one hundred houses located in informal settlements. The scope of damage shows how vulnerable the communities living in Jakarta are.

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Figure 1. Map showing the areas flooded in 1996, 2002 and 2007

In this paper, we propose first to analyze, through the 2007 event and a comparison with the last two flood events (1996 and 2002), the causes of increasing flooding. This analysis will be conducted in order to demonstrate the importance of human factors that increase both the magnitude of the natural phenomenon, and the vulnerability of

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the city as a whole. Then, we shall examine the underpinning and daily social, economic and political constraints which create this particular risky configuration, and explain both the direct human causes, and the behavior and coping strategies of poorest populations during those extreme events. We will focus on poor communities, as variability in vulnerability is quite high between communities (Nigg, 1996; Maskrey, 1999) and “generally, the poor suffer more from hazards than the wealthy” (Chan and Parker, 1996, p. 314). In Jakarta, the informal poor districts are the most affected by flood related disasters. In a third part, we will provide an overview of the policies of disaster management in Jakarta, to understand why official strategies failed to limit damages in February 2007. We shall then discuss the reasons for the failure of the system in the poor Jakartanese communities, and introduce possible management alternatives. Methodology First, this study is based on secondary hydrological data. We analyzed separately daily precipitations data for five stations and water level data for three stations all located along the main Ciliwung River (2002 and 2007). Socio-economic data, official reports and satellite imagery were collected to study the anthropogenic factors of flooding events. Some of the most interesting results of our research are based on field investigations undertaken between 2006 and 2007 in four different informal kampungs (Indonesian word to designate urban quarters which compose the mosaic of Jakarta city) during the dry season. The kampungs that were studied were Waduk Pluit and Muara Baru Ujung near the Jakarta bay, Pademangan Barat in the lowest part of the Ciliwung canal in North Jakarta, and Bukit Duri near the Ciliwung River in South Jakarta (Figure 1). The field surveys consisted of 120 questionnaires (30 per district) which were aimed at assessing firstly the perceptions of risk related to water hazards. Secondly, these surveys intended to assess the inhabitants’ perception of official strategies of disaster management, and of their own responsibility in increasing floods. Finally, field investigations aimed to understand the underlying constraints which influence the respondent’s behavior when facing risk. The sampling method adopted was of random type (without stratification) applied in each hazard-designated area. Three quarters of the respondents appeared to be migrants. Descriptive statistical methods using Sphynx software were conducted to analyze the data. Stationary observations were also undertaken during the heavy floods that occurred in February 2007 in the district of Bukit Duri, in South Jakarta. These observations were complemented with interviews with institutional and non-institutional actors. How natural are flood-related disasters in Jakarta? Environmental factors which enhance flooding In order to assess the contribution of “natural” factors in comparison to anthropogenic factors in the explanation of the magnitude of this event, we compared the hydrological data between 1996, 2002 and 2007 (Figure 2, Table I), then we analyzed the evolution in land use during the same period. The results show that rainfall for the five stations in 2007 was almost equal in terms of total amount, even if it was more concentrated in time and more intense than in 2002. However, differences in rainfall alone cannot explain the gap between the floodwater level in 1996, 2002 and 2007 (more than one meter higher in 2007 in Bukit Duri), nor the extent of the flooded area and casualties.

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Figure 2. Comparison of rainfall for five stations in the Ciliwung watershed, and waterlevel for three stations between 2002 and 2007

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Table I. Comparison between the last three flood events in Jakarta (1996, 2002 and 2007): hydrological patterns and consequences

1995-1996 Total rainfall for five stations (mm) Maximum rainfall upstream (mm/day) Maximum rainfall downstream (mm/day) Average rainfall intensity (mm/day) Average rainfall intensity upstream (mm/day) Average rainfall intensity downstream (mm/day) percent average rainy day Duration rainy event (day) Water level in Manggarai (cm) Flood level in Bukit Duri (m) Duration last dry season Casualties Flooded area (spatial estimation) (%) Displaced people

ND ND ND ND ND ND ND ND 970 1.7 10 20-30 28,000

2001-2002

2006-2007

7,100 168.1 172 21.1 20.6 21.9 69.9 121 1,050.0 2.3

7,483.9 247 234.7 25.8 24.8 27.3 67.0 88 1,061.0 3.4 5-7 months 58-74 60-70 450,000

50 40-50 350,000

Sources: Badan Meteorologi dan Geofisika, Ciliwung Cisadane Project, and Tempo (2007).

Anthropogenic causes of increasing floods A number of anthropogenic factors determine the explanation of such a difference. The first lies in the uncontrolled growth of the urban areas, despite the existence of a greenbelt in successive master plans since 1965 (Figure 1). Urbanization has progressively waterproofed the surface and prevented water from infiltrating during floods, causing increased direct runoff to the 13 rivers of Jakarta. Upstream, numerous villas have been built as secondary residences in the past 50 years by the upper classes of Jakarta, while a flourishing tea plantation has progressively settled on the main slopes of volcanoes causing a huge reduction in the forested area (Figure 3). Downstream, two processes explain this uncontrolled urbanization. First; urban development (Steinberg, 2007; Firman, 1998), which has been promoted by the successive governments since Soekarno in 1945, has led to the construction of high buildings, which waterproofed the downstream area. More recently (in the last decade), large shopping centers and upper class residences have progressively been replacing traditional neighborhoods (kampungs) and reducing vegetated areas (Figure 4). Secondly, the urban housing policy has played a role in causing a housing crisis, by giving the private sector the key to build new residences without enough governmental control (Leaf, 1991; Firman, 2004; Harsono, 1999). As a result, people expelled from traditional kampungs and migrants from rural provinces, were forced to dwell in the remaining vacant and often marginal places, e.g. on the river banks, along the railway or near the seashore (Figure 5a). These illegal settlements are seen by the government as the main cause for the increase in the magnitude of the flooding in Jakarta. This is because housing progressively encroaches on the natural flood expansion area of the rivers. However, if the role of housing in urban waterproofing has often been assumed by Scientists (Parker, 1999; Few, 2003; Programme des Nations Unies pour le De´veloppement, 2004), it seems that illegal settlements are not the single major player in explaining the increase in flood magnitude. It seems to be one factor among many others. It is further impossible to firmly assess their real impact and contribution in comparison to other physical and anthropogenic factors. Moreover, these poor and illegal communities not only contribute to increase flooding hazards by their

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Figure 3. Urban growth upstream and downstream

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Figure 4. Illegal settlement on the river bank and risky behavior

settlement, but also by some specific behavior. Indeed, they contribute to the poor drainage of continental waters to the sea by throwing their waste directly into the river. 98 percent of respondents in Bukit Duri confessed that they are used to doing so into the Ciliwung River (Figure 5b). Fast and non controlled urbanization is thus largely recognized, in Jakarta as in other developing cities, as a major factor which emphasizes disaster risks (Programme des Nations Unies pour le De´veloppement, 2004). Victims’ vulnerability and observed coping mechanisms, in the face of the 2007 flooding episode Although these poor and informal communities appear to share part of the responsibility in the increasing of floods magnitude, they are also the main victims as they live in the most affected districts and appear extremely vulnerable. They expose themselves to floods by living within flooded areas near the rivers. During the latest floods, a lot of people among these communities refused to evacuate their houses. In total, 58 (according to BAKORNAS, the National Coordinating Board for the Management of Disaster) to 74

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Figure 5. A multirisk perception-behavior system to take into account

(according to Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) people died from hypothermia, drowning, or electrocution. Hundreds of fragile makeshift houses built on the riverbank by informal settlers were washed out by flood onslaughts and thousands more were destroyed or heavily damaged. Indeed, flood-affected people have to cope with harsh daily conditions which increase their vulnerability during flood occurrences. The very high density of population (which sometimes reaches 18,000 inhabitants per km2) and the narrow road network complicate evacuation operations. Furthermore, a large proportion of the dwellings do not have a second floor, so that many of the people who did not evacuate had to clamber onto their roofs for safety. Furthermore, flood victims had to cope with poor hygienic conditions both during the floods and the rehabilitation phase. Our observations show that they washed themselves and cleaned their dishes in muddy floodwater. Most seldom washed their hands before eating, and had to face stagnant water (where mosquitos flourished). The poor hygienic conditions made flood victims vulnerable to water-borne diseases. In February and March 2007, the Ministry of Health recorded outbreaks of Dengue hemorrhagic fever (378 patients, 13 deaths), leptospirosis (112 patients, 4 deaths) and diarrhoea (1,066 patients, 20 deaths) (OCHA, 2007). These diseases are directly linked with lack of hygiene toward water. Tracking the underpinning factors of vulnerability One of our main objectives is to identify the deeper causes influencing the structural factors of vulnerability and the array of coping strategies used by the flood victims. These strategies can be risky and lead to people’s limited capacity to resist floods and

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their consequences. In other words, it is essential to understand the decision making processes that lead poor people to adopt such behavior. Two paradigms can be opposed within the framework of research about risks related to natural hazard and about vulnerable people’s behaviors. The first one concerns responses to natural phenomena (rare in time and extreme in magnitude at human scale), according to a hazard-related logic. According to this dominant paradigm in social science research, the main factor influencing behavior and vulnerability is the low perception of the phenomenon and its associated risks (Kates, 1971; Burton et al., 1978). The second factor appeared in the 1970s, highlighting the vulnerability of potential victims, or their susceptibility to be affected by a phenomenon. People’s behavior is thus considered as constrained by structural, social, cultural, economical, political and non hazard-related factors (Waddell, 1977; Torry, 1979; Hewitt, 1983; Cannon, 1994; Wisner, 1998; Gaillard, 2007). Vulnerability is thus “intimately connected with the continuing process of underdevelopment recorded throughout the world” (O’Keefe et al., 1976, p. 560). For our case study, we have first analyzed the perception of risks related to floods among these vulnerable communities of target district. Our results show that their level of knowledge and perception of risks related to water was relatively high. Before migrating to flood prone districts of Jakarta, (since nearly three quarters of respondents are migrants), 68 percent of migrants respondents already knew that it was flooded annually. Moreover, even if the material damages are their main concern and fear, drowning risks and water-borne diseases are mentioned as possible consequence of floods by more than 45 percent of respondents. They are also fully aware of basic hygiene rules like washing hands before eating, and boiling water until 5 to 20 min before drinking (WHO actually recommends to boil the water “at least five minutes and preferably up to a period of twenty minutes” (WHO, 2005), depending on altitude). Their experience of floods is important since almost all of them have already experienced a flood event. They also have good knowledge of the natural and human causes of floods. Problems of waste evacuation are evoked by 33.3 percent of all respondents, and by 40 percent of Bukit Duri respondents, and appear as the second cause of floods behind rainfall from upstream (quoted by 50 percent of respondents). The third cause suggested by the interviewees to explain flooding is the encroachment of settlements on river banks. The behavior of flood victims emphasized in section 4 seems to be contradictory to their accurate perception of risks. But if we try to look for deeper and daily structural constraints, as the vulnerability paradigm suggests, the causes of this behavior seem clear. Indeed, these people have to face many more risks in daily life, and the most important one is not floods, but economic, social, and political ones. Even though flooding is a seasonal phenomenon, they do not consider floods as a main source of danger compared to others. 40 percent of the interviewees actually mentioned fires as the principal danger against 25 percent for floods. There are thus three components of risk that influence the actions and decisions of the people surveyed. The first component is that economic is risk linked to poverty: the monthly income rarely exceeds 40 euro per family (1.20 Euro per day per family), and the non-official unemployment rate is quite high. The official figures point to a 15 percent unemployment rate among the active population of Jakarta (Badan Pusat Statistik, 2007), but more than 35 percent of the employed Jakartanese have temporary jobs, and this rate is much higher in informal districts. Furthermore, the means of production are often at home, where they also have all their belongings (low use of banking systems for savings). If those people leave their home during floods, they have to take the risk of

losing their means of production. This explains why almost 40 percent of the respondents preferred to stay at home and face the last flood and its associated dangers, than risk losing everything if they left their homes. Furthermore, even though they were aware of the possibility of being affected by floods before arriving in the area, their first aim was to look for better jobs. Secondly they had no other choice. Thirdly, it was cheaper in this location than anywhere else. They have “chosen” to accept the danger of floods in their struggle against their daily poverty (Pelling, 1999). The second component is social and societal risk that can also explain why informal settlers are willing to stay in flood-prone districts. They do not want to move from a social environment they progressively managed to re-create from their original province in Jakarta. They want to keep their social place in the community and in their family. Vulnerability is thus a social production (Few, 2003). Some structural constraints of political origin can further explain their behavior in facing harsh hygienic conditions. For the Jakarta government, informal settlers are in “illegal” situation. They have no right to stay in their settlements because many of them have no Jakartanese ID. Informal settlements are thus marginalized in relation to other areas, especially in terms of access to resources and public services. The government refuses to develop basic services in areas they plan to clear from settlement. Between 2000 and 2005, 63,676 people were evicted and 1,592,011 people were threatened with expulsion in poor districts touched by some public-private partnership projects (Harsono, 1999; the Urban Poor Consortium NGO). Informal settlers’ access to the official drinking water network is very limited. Data from Palyja local consumers agency (French private firm who markets cleanwater for west Jakarta) show that in Bukit Duri RW12, only 9 percent of total households and 4.8 percent of flooded households are connected to the official PAM Jaya cleanwater network (Perusahan Air Minum Jaya, Indonesian official Drinking water agency). On the other hand, the private sector (Palyja) and the government (PAM Jaya) have been observed as being “against pro-poor water supply development” despite their declarations to the contrary (Bakker, 2007, p. 1). Therefore, people marginalized from official network have to search for alternatives to get water, which are in most cases more expensive because they buy water at the end of a long chain of intermediary. In Bukit Duri, a lot of people have installed electric pumps. These are less expensive despite a low quality of water. But during floods, authorities cut electricity to prevent electrocution. As all the pumps are out of order, people have no other choice than to use dirty flood water (Figure 5d) thus exposing themselves to water-borne diseases. Illegal inhabitants are also deprived of any official waste management system. If they did not throw garbage directly into the river, it could be more dangerous for them because garbage may cause, through vermin and pests proliferation, outbreaks of leptospirosis (transmitted by rat) or bird flu (transmitted by chicken). Throwing garbage in the river (the less dangerous place for their health) can be seen as a coping strategy in the face of daily hardship, as well as pumping water where it is (within soils and rivers). The vulnerability of these people is thus materialized by their behavior, which is the result of a social and economically related decision processes, rather than hazard related processes. Many other case studies came up with the same findings (Penning-Rowsell, 1996; Nigg, 1996). Which official strategy for enhancing disaster management? We have already pointed out that official policies consider the poor communities of Jakarta’s flooded kampungs as largely responsible for floods, just after the main cause

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which is generally recognized as heavy rainfall. However, the official explanations (especially given by the Jakarta’s Governor Sutiyoso) actually correspond to political issues. The government policies actually reflect economic needs. They are also aimed at eradicating poverty and giving Jakarta a modern face. During recent decades, the government thus acceded to big commercial firms or real-estate agencies who wanted to build new projects. This Urban evolution did not conform to green belt objectives imposed by successive official Masterplans. Moreover, the local government does not blame elite developments which have led to an almost total deforestation of the area upstream of the Ciliwung Basin. Conversely, developing poor kampungs will not bring enough benefit to the political elite. Since these communities are apparently partially responsible for floods, it appears necessary, from the government’s point of view, first to educate them and secondly to relocate them. The governmental strategy is thus hazard-focused and based on a “development-induced displacement and resettlement or DIDR” (Oliver-Smith, 2001). The first objective is to fight floods by controlling the hazards with structural measures. The government engaged in large-scale irrigation work, construction of dikes, canals (the East Flood Canal for instance) and dams to channel the rivers. Ultimately it is supposed to cause an end to the expulsion of more than 250,000 people, according to calculations based on official budget data and to the Urban Poor Consortium. DIDR can thus be felt by evicted or threatened communities as an “aggression of development” (Heijmans, 2004). The second objective of the government is to make the poor population more conscious of flood hazards and sanitation by awareness campaigns, considering floods as the main risk these people have to face. Yet, those programs seem to be inappropriate as risk perception is already high among flood victims. The third goal is to remove people from the flooded illegal districts and to relocate them into social housing (flats) in Jakarta, or to transmigrate them to the outer islands. The first option usually fails because the cost of living in flats is too high (between 10 and 20 Euro per month). Similarly, the second strategy turns out to be ineffective because transmigration programs do not consider the origin of the people and social ties, which are very important. Finally, in times of flooding, the government focuses on evacuating people and trying to give them as much food and medicine, and as many blankets as possible. This type of response proved to be quite insufficient to sustain the needs of the victims of the 2007 flooding event. For example, Bukit Duri (RW12), which was one of the most affected districts, did not get support from the government and people managed to organize evacuation by themselves. Therefore, the hazard-focused policy of the government of Jakarta fails to address the underlying causes of vulnerability (Figure 6). Furthermore, they seem to fight poverty, by fighting poor people, not by helping them to reduce daily constraints. Outlooks The 2007 flood-related disaster in Jakarta can be explained by anthropogenic factors which enhance the natural flooding process of a meteorological or hydrological nature (monsoonal climate, subsidence and topography, rivers network). Furthermore, the poorest communities are those who suffer the most from floods. However, the behaviors and coping strategies of these people do not result from a low risk perception but can be explained by daily underpinning socio-economical and political constraints. Jakarta’s flood victims are principally people who are geographically, socially, economically and politically marginalized (even of all social categories of population suffered from floods).

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Figure 6. Factors behind people’s behavior and policy making in facing flooding in Jakarta, Indonesia

The official policy of the Jakarta government to face flooding does not address the deep causes of vulnerability but rather emphasizes natural hazards. It focuses on technical measures to control floods and public awareness campaigns to enhance an alleged low perception of risk. Moreover, the government considers the poorest communities as partly responsible for flooding and plans to conduct development-induced displacements and resettlements (DIDR) for these districts. Such programs would cause a loss of local knowledge and social relations, and degrade collective memory. Some alternatives do exist for marginalized communities. These alternatives aim at reducing vulnerability by tackling underpinning constraints. Some private foundations sponsor local projects to reduce poverty (Clay et al., 2005). These projects however hardly cover informal communities considered to be less motivated and able to succeed. Furthermore, they often give the project leadership to political elites and finally tend to “reproduce embedded distributions of power and vulnerability” (Pelling, 1999, p. 249). Some NGOs challenge the governmental strategy by developing an alternative power of resistance to DIDR (Oliver-Smith, 2001) to help people in securing land tenure (The Urban Poor Consortium for instance). Other NGOs develop community-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR) programs. They activate local informal networks and rely on local capacities and knowledge based on experience. CBDRR enables the empowering of victims in the face of floods. It reduces significantly the vulnerability rooted in the larger access to resources (Rahayu, 2003; Shaw and Okazaki, 2004; Winayanti and Heracles, 2004; Yayasan IDEP, 2005; Bosher et al., 2007; Texier et al., 2007). The choice of a local trusted leader could avoid problems of embedding existing inequalities. On the other hand, the government policy should focus on reducing structural vulnerability. First, it is crucial to integrate community-based projects and local coping mechanisms and knowledge into the official disaster management system, although informal systems are strongly contextualized and thus can hardly be applied generally (Waddell, 1983; Parker et al., 1998; Mercer et al., 2007). This local knowledge should be recognized as a resource able to enhance people’s capacities (Chan, 1995; Chan and

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Parker, 1996; Wisner, 1998). Alternative stakeholders should be, in the same way, part of the formal development agenda, which should not be anymore a “top-down monologue” (Oliver-Smith, 2001). Secondly, it appears essential to consider vulnerability mitigation within a global development framework (Schipper and Pelling, 2006). While disasters tend to intensify inequalities, a concerted local (and not national) strategy of management should aim at treating the specific case of illegal kampungs through positive discrimination (Johnson et al., 2007). Note 1. Height measured on the 5th February from the thalweg to the highest point reached by floodwater. Or 5 meters from the river bank, compared to 3.5 meters in 2002 (according to several inhabitants’ evidences and measures). References Abidin, H., Darmawan, D., Akbara, H., Rajiyowiryono, H., Sudiyo, Y., Meilano, I., Kasum, A.M., Kahar, J. and Subarya, C. (2001), “Land subsidence of Jakarta (Indonesia) and its geodetic monitoring system”, Natural Hazard, Vol. 23, pp. 365-87. Badan Pusat Statistik (2007), Berita Resmi Statistik, BPS Provinsi DKI Jakarta, Jakarta. Bakker, K. (2007), “Trickle down? Private sector participation and the pro-poor water supply debate in Jakarta, Indonesia”, Geoforum., Vol. 38, pp. 855-68. Bosher, L., Penning-Rowsell, E. and Tapsell, S. (2007), “Resource accessibility and vulnerability in Andhra Pradesh: caste and non-caste influences”, Development and Change, Vol. 38 No. 4, pp. 615-40. Burton, I., Kates, R.W. and White, G.F. (1978), The Environment as Hazard, Oxford University Press, New York, NY. Cannon, T. (1994), “Vulnerability analysis and the explanation of ‘natural’ disasters”, in Varley, A. (Ed.), Disasters, Development and Environment, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, pp. 13-30. Chan, N.W. (1995), “A contextual analysis of flood hazard management in Peninsular Malaysia”, PhD dissertation, School of Geography and Environmental Management, Flood Hazard Research Center, Middlesex University. Chan, N.W. and Parker, D.J. (1996), “Dynamic flood hazard factors in Peninsular Malaysia”, The Geographical Journal, Vol. 162 No. 3, pp. 313-25. Clay, J.,Unilever, Oxfam UK (2005), Exploring the Links between International Business and Poverty Reduction: A Case Study of Unilever in Indonesia, Information Press, Eynsham. Few, R. (2003), “Flooding, vulnerability and coping strategies: local responses to a global threat”, Progress in Development Studies, Vol. 3 No. 1, pp. 43-58. Firman, T. (1998), “The restructuring of Jakarta metropolitan area: a ‘global city’ in Asia”, Cities, Vol. 15 No. 4, pp. 229-43. Firman, T. (2004), “New town development in Jakarta Metropolitan Region: perspective of spatial segregation”, Habitat International, Vol. 28, pp. 349-68. Gaillard, J.C. (2007), “De l’origine des catastrophes: phe´nome`nes extreˆmes ou aˆprete´ du quotidien?”, Natures Sciences Socie´te´s, Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 44-7. Harsono, A. (1999), “Les spolie´s de Jakarta”, Courier de l’Unesco, June, pp. 26-8. Heijmans, A. (2004), “From vulnerability to empowerment”, in Bankoff, G. and Hilhorst, D. (Eds), Mapping Vulnerability: Disasters, Development and People, Earthscan, London, pp. 115-27.

Hewitt, K. (1983), “The idea of calamity in a technocratic age”, in Hewitt, K. (Ed.), Interpretation of Calamities, The Risks and Hazards series No. 1, pp. 3-32.

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Hirose, K., Maruyama, Y., Murdohardono, D., Effebdi, A. and Abidin, H.Z. (2001), “Land subsidence detection using JERS-1 SAR interferometry”, Proceedings of 22nd Asian Conference on Remote Sensing, Singapore, 5-9 November 2001. Johnson, C., Penning-Rowsell, E. and Parker, D. (2007), “Natural and imposed injustices: the challenges in implementing ‘fair’ flood risk management policy in England”, The Geographical Journal, Vol. 173 No. 4, pp. 374-90. Kates, R.W. (1971), “Natural hazard in human ecological perspective: hypotheses and models”, Economic Geography, Vol. 47 No. 3, pp. 438-51. Leaf, M.L. (1991), “Land regulation and housing development in Jakarta, Indonesia: from the ‘Big Village’ to the modern city”, PhD dissertation, University of Berkeley, Berkeley, CA. Maskrey, A. (1999), “Reducing global disasters”, in Ingleton, J. (Ed.), Natural Disaster Management, Tudor Rose, Leicester, pp. 84-6. Mercer, J., Dominey-Howes, D., Kelman, I. and Lloyd, K. (2007), “The potential for combining indigenous and western knowledge in reducing vulnerability to environmental hazards in small island developing states”, Environmental Hazards, Vol. 7, pp. 245-56. Nigg, J. (1996), “The social impacts of physical processes: how do we manage what we can’t control?”, Preliminary paper 238, Disaster Research Center, University of Delaware Newark, Newark, DE. OCHA (2007), Floods in JABODETABEK (Jakarta-Bogor-Depok-Tangerang-Bekasi), OCHA Situation Report No. 11, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Geneva. O’Keefe, P., Westgate, K. and Wisner, B. (1976), “Taking the naturalness out of natural disasters”, Nature, Vol. 260 No. 5552, pp. 566-7. Oliver-Smith, A. (2001), Displacement, Resistance and the Critique of Development: From the Grass Roots to the Global, Final report prepared for ESCOR R7644 and the research program on development induced displacement and resettlement, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, Oxford. Parker, D.J. (1999), “Flood”, in Ingleton, J. (Ed.), Natural Disaster Management, Tudor Rose, Leicester, pp. 38-40. Parker, D.J. and Handmer, J.W. (1998), “The role of unofficial flood warning systems”, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 45-60. Pelling, M. (1999), “The political ecology of flood hazard in urban Guyana”, Geoforum, Vol. 30, pp. 249-61. Penning-Rowsell, E. (1996), “Flood-hazard response in Argentina”, The Geographical Review, Vol. 86 No. 1, pp. 72-90. Programme des Nations Unies pour le De´veloppement (2004), La Re´duction des Risques de Catastrophes: Un De´fi pour le De´veloppement, Programme des Nations Unies pour le De´veloppement, New York, NY. Rahayu, H. (2003), “Indonesia experience”, in Shaw, R. and Okazaki, K. (Eds), Sustainability in Grass-Roots Initiatives: Focus on Community Based Disaster Management, United Nations Centre for Regional Development-Disaster Management Planning, Kobe, pp. 50-7. Schipper, L. and Pelling, M. (2006), “Disaster risk, climate change and international developement: scope for, and challenges to, integration”, Disasters, Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 19-38.

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Shaw, R. and Okazaki, K. (2004), Sustainable Community Based Disaster Management (CBDM) Practices in Asia: A User’s Guide, United Nations Centre for Regional Development-Disaster Management Planning, Kobe. Steinberg, F. (2007), “Jakarta: environmental problems and sustainability”, Habitat International, Vol. 31 Nos 3-4, pp. 34-365. Tempo (2007), “Jakarta floods: the blame game”, Tempo, 19 February, pp. 9-31. Texier, P., Tadie´, J. and Gaillard, J.C. (2007), “La gestion des inondations au sein des quartiers informels de Jakarta: politiques publiques et re´ponses des populations”, Les Cahiers de Pre´ludes, No. 11, pp. 41-60. Torry, W.I. (1979), “Hazards, hazes and holes: a critique of the Environment as hazard, and general reflections on disaster research”, Canadian Geographer, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 368-83. Waddell, E. (1977), “The hazards of scientism: a review article”, Human Ecology, Vol. 5 No. 1, pp. 69-76. Waddell, E. (1983), “Coping with frosts, governments and disaster experts. Some reflections based on a New Guinea experience and a perusal of the relevant literature”, in Hewitt, K. (Ed.), Interpretations of Calamity, Allen & Unwin, Winchester, pp. 33-43. WHO (2005), Emergency Treatment of Drinking Water – Technical Notes for Emergencies, World Health Organization, Geneva. Winayanti, L. and Heracles, C.L. (2004), “Provision of urban services in an informal settlement: a case study of Kampung Penas Tanggul, Jakarta”, Habitat International, Vol. 28, pp. 41-65. Wisner, B. (1998), “Marginality and vulnerability”, Applied Geography, Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 25-33. Yayasan IDEP (2005), Penanggulangan Bencana Berbasis Masyarakat (PBBM), Yayasan IDEP, Ubud. Further reading Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS) (2004), Sensus Penduduk 2000-2004, Badan Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, available at: http://bps.jakarta.go.id Pasang, H., Moore, G.A. and Sitorus, G. (2007), “Neighbourhood-based waste management: a solution for solid waste problems in Jakarta, Indonesia”, Waste Management, Vol. 27, pp. 1924-38. Unilever (2004), Unilever Engaging with Community and Environment, Unilever, Jakarta. Unilever (2006), Unilever Sustainability Report, Unilever, Jakarta. Wisner, B., Blaikie, P., Cannon, T. and Davis, I. (2004), At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability and Disasters, Routledge, London. Corresponding author Pauline Texier can be contacted at: [email protected]

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Survival strategies to overcome inaagosto and nordeste in two coastal communities in Batangas and Mindoro, the Philippines

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Soledad Natalia M. Dalisay Department of Anthropology, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this study is to describe how the people in two coastal communities in Batangas and Mindoro respond to the effects of these seasonal changes on their lives and livelihood. Design/methodology/approach – The study makes use of findings from a previous study conducted by the author in Batangas and from primary data gathered in Mindoro through interviews with key informants. Findings – The study shows that people in the two communities visited viewed the monsoon rains and typhoons brought about by seasonal changes as being part of the daily life challenges they had to face. The rainy season was also the lean food season which they called inaagosto in Batangas and nordeste in Mindoro. Hence, their responses were mostly at the individual or household level, rarely taking advantage of community programs and projects that could help them survive the lean food season. Although divided by a body of water, the people in Batangas and Mindoro employed very similar strategies. These strategies included negotiating for entitlements, engaging in extra-income-earning activities, and reallocating scarce food resources in the home. They differed, however, in ways in which they had “reinvented” food during the lean season. In both communities, coping was seen to be gendered. Practical implications – The paper provides an understanding of how people respond to hazards that accompany the lean season and how best to approach these responses to achieve optimum results that would truly address the challenges faced by affected communities. Originality/value – The paper contributes to the development of more appropriate programmes and projects that would alleviate the effects of inaagosto and nordeste. Keywords Seasonality, Hazards, Philippines Paper type Case study

Introduction While most of the literature on disaster has focused on events that were “extreme” in magnitude and “rare” in occurrence (Gaillard et al., 2005), this particular paper addresses disasters that, more or less, occur on a regular basis, being part of seasonality in two fishing communities in the provinces of Batangas and Oriental Mindoro. Being in the typhoon belt, the two communities in this study would often experience floodwaters, landslides and power outages a few times a year. While a certain degree of fatalism through the expression “bahala na” was reported as a coping response to disasters, this was not seen in an entirely negative light (Bankoff, 2004). Just the same, people do act; people work on their own to alleviate their suffering. In a study among the Ivatans of Batanes in the Philippines, which is one of the most often

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visited areas in the country by tropical cyclones, it was reported that not only do the people have the local knowledge of storm warning signals and typhoon classifications, but they have also devised their own ways of coping with the onslaught of typhoons. These included among others, placing emphasis on root crops, particularly the uvi (Dioscorea alata) as the most important cultural food, planting of vutalaw trees (Calophyllum inophyllum) as windbreakers, and, restricting fishing, a major economic activity, to the typhoon-free months (Blolong, 1996). Quite interestingly, with the occurrence of really devastating events, religion emerges as a coping strategy employed by affected people. For instance, when people of Ormoc City experienced the killer flash flood on November 5, 1991 that left thousands dead and missing, some of the people had responded by reinforcing their faith through lifting all their suffering and doubts to God (Alix, 1996). Turning to religion had helped in accepting the all the pain felt by perceiving the experience to be the will of God. The study by Alix (1996) showed that in extreme disaster conditions religion would be one of the last-resort responses employed. Another paper (Bennagen, 1996) showed how a sense of ownership of actions or responses to environmental hazards could have a positive effect on how people manage their lives. Hence, people’s own responses gain prime importance in disaster management rather than relief from outside. In this particular study, the people in the two coastal communities have learned to cope with hazards on a daily basis, thus, their responses to the risks posed on their lives and properties whenever disasters result from bad weather conditions, have been normalized. This paper will show how people in two fishing communities have responded using their own methods to hazards experienced during the rainy season, which they recognize as the lean food season using. Methodology The paper makes use of data from various sources, namely from a previously conducted study in Batangas, results of which have been published elsewhere (Dalisay, 2005), and from primary sources as a result of fieldwork conducted in 2006 and 2007 in Mindoro Oriental. The Mindoro study was a follow-up to the Batangas study in the sense that data from Mindoro was meant to supplement data from Batangas by providing points for comparison. Data for the Batangas study made use of a survey among an initial number of 56 households, which was later trimmed down to 53 because of the transfer of residence of two households midway during data collection and prolonged absence of another informant. In-depth interviews with 4 individuals were done in Batangas. Data from Mindoro was collected using in-depth interviews with 7 key informants that included community informal leaders, the local cooperative head, housewives and community health center staff. The interviews in both sites covered questions that included among others: the effects of the rainy season on their lives and livelihood, how they responded to the rainy season in an effort to alleviate the ill-effects wrought by the rainy season, and, finally, recommendations to help ease their suffering during the rainy season. Informants in both areas were purposely chosen to belong to the low income group, falling below the poverty threshold determined for Region IV, the geopolitical region in which both Batangas and Mindoro belong to, which was PhP 15,261.00 (approx. US$381.00) per capita per annum for the year 2000. The lower income groups were selected for this study because they would be the most vulnerable being poor and living in a hazard prone area such as the coastal areas and

would, therefore, bear the brunt of the lean season. Socio-culturally, the people in the two study sites were very much related. In fact, many of the informants in Mindoro claimed to have relatives in Batangas and communicated with them on a fairly regular basis. Most of them were migrants from other parts of the country who had left their rural roots, hoping to make it in nearby urbanizing centers. All of the households covered by the study lived below the poverty line and most of the household heads were engaged in seasonal labor that included fishing, farming, construction labor and itinerant food vending. Because of the small sample size, wider application of the study must be done with caution. Seasonality and vulnerability in Batangas and Mindoro Both Batangas and Mindoro provinces belong to Region IV or the Southern Tagalog Region of the Philippines. Both provinces are located in the central part of the country and are separated only by a small strip of water called the Calapan Bay. Batangas, particularly the side where the study community is located, has a climate profile which is characterized by a wet and dry season annually. The study community in Mindoro has a climate wherein the seasons are not too distinct, and it is relatively dry from the months of November to April and wet for the rest of the year (National Bookstore Incorporated, Atlas of the Philippines and the World, 2006). Batangas and Mindoro experience strong monsoon rains and tropical cyclones during the rainy or wet season. These are the months recognized as the lean food season variably called inaagosto in Batangas and nordeste in Mindoro. The term inaagosto was derived from the Tagalog word for August which was recognized as the peak of the rainy season wherein the strongest typhoons and heaviest rains are experienced (Dalisay, 2005). In Mindoro, the term nordeste was derived from the northeasterly winds, which was perceived to bring in the rains and gusty winds. In both sites, the greatest hardships were experienced during the rainy season. Hardships were described in terms of difficulty in securing food because of the difficulty in engaging in their livelihood activities as well as threats to the health of the children. Region IV is often hit by tropical cyclones that visit the country several times a year. Delfin (2005) reported that, on the average, a total of 20 tropical cyclones pass through the Philippine area of responsibility each year. Because the households in both study sites lived near bodies of water; the Taal Lake in Batangas and Calapan Bay in Mindoro, they are exposed to natural hazards during the lean season. Livelihood activities are halted because hazards pose a threat to the lives of the people. Flooding accompanied by gusty winds becomes a normal occurrence leading to inundation of farm lands resulting in crop loss. Flooding has also been known to claim the lives of residents who are not careful enough. Fishing becomes too risky an occupation. Food thus became a scarce resource. Flooding has also caused a toll on the property of the people in flood-prone areas. Houses are destroyed and furniture and appliances damaged. Moreover, the health of the people, particularly that of children, those with weak body constitutions, and the elderly, is compromised. The health statistics of the local health center in Batangas showed that the most common ailment for which treatment was sought was common coughs and colds (Dalisay, 2005). Because the study households lived below poverty limits, their resources did not allow for easy recovery from the effects of the lean season. Oftentimes, hardship

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measures are resorted to, such as children being forced to quit school or securing loans at exorbitant interest rates. Moreover, intervention measures from outside to help ease these effects were not available. At best, relief programs are implemented only after damage has been done and when devastation to life and property is great. Also, households were reluctant to approach government institutions for aid because they did not have knowledge of where to go or who to approach in such instances. Perceptions of the seasons In Mindoro particularly, informants viewed the rainy season as part of the annual cycle that set the activities of their daily lives. These were not viewed as unusual occurrences but rather, were seen as normal events that are to be expected as nature has meant it to be. One informant in Mindoro mentioned that “. . .It really depends on the season. Yearly, the rainy season occurs. We cannot do anything about it because it is part of nature.” There is a perceived permanence to the changing of the seasons and that humans cannot do anything about it simply because it is part of the natural course of events. Therefore, people have only to accept this permanence and to adopt ways to cope with the events that the rainy season brings. This is unless the super typhoons bring about extreme devastation or rare events like tsunamis occur. There is a positive outlook, though, in the sense that there is the hope that there is also the abundant food season to look forward to. Responding to the lean season Described below are the coping strategies used by the informants to redress the ill-effects brought about by the rainy or the lean season. While most of the strategies are really stop-gap measures meant to address immediate needs, or to tide people over until the lean season has passed, some such as working overseas and children quitting school actually address the problem of having to face hazards on a more regular basis, as was the experience of the informants in this study. The informants live below the poverty line so they have to contend with the fact that they are poor and that they live in hazard prone areas. Poverty exacerbates the effects of the hazards and at the same time exposure to the hazards pushes them further into the margins of poverty. During the lean food season, people draw upon a repertoire of strategies that they use whenever difficulties are encountered. Difficulties experienced as a result of environmental hazards have been normalized and were considered as part of the daily grind of living. Both poverty and hazards are threads interwoven into the fabric of everyday lives of these people. It is vital to recognize, though that during the lean food season, coping strategies were employed with greater frequency and that this indicated that human suffering was intensified. In the study sites in Batangas and Mindoro, coping appeared to be gendered. While the men helped to alleviate the effects of the lean food season, it was mainly the wives who thought of ways and acted so their households would survive inaagosto and nordeste. The coping strategies were mostly at the household level and were deemed to be within the domestic sphere of activities of the women. It was the wives who secured loans from relatives and friends. All the wives in the study households had some kind of extra income generating activities. The husbands served as assistants to their wives, helping out their wives with “sidelines” such as delivery of products, sourcing of raw

materials or in the sale of goods. In effect, the wives became the coping mechanism of the household. This places them in a vulnerable position, having to be the one to bear the brunt of the lean season. The paper does point too, to the reluctance on the part of the wives to relegate some of their traditional roles to the husbands. In Mindoro, particularly, marketing and food preparation were tasks wives preferred to do on their own. In Batangas, the men were not allowed to manage the family budget, with wives claiming that their husbands could not be trusted with financial management. Other studies have pointed to women as better managers of household budgets compared to men (Juanillo, 1996; Miralao, 1997). Negotiating for entitlements Negotiating for entitlements was a primary response during the lean food season and this usually involved the wives. Some of the respondents felt that they were poor and were in a worse situation compared with some of their relatives and neighbors, particularly when compared with those who had relatives working overseas. They have, thus, felt entitled to extensions of help from relatives, friends and neighbors whom they felt were better off than them. One respondent in Mindoro said “. . .they are rich anyway and we are poor so they should be helping us who are poor . . . ”. Relatives were often approached not only during the lean food season but on every occasion assistance was needed. Money loans with “pay when able” schemes were not uncommon. Birthdays and Christmases were occasions to further test the generosity of relatives and friends because gift giving was expected. Assistance was usually sought in terms of money loans; sometimes, small children were sent to relatives to ask for viand, or children were sent to live temporarily with relatives to reduce cost of living in their own households. Relatives, on the other hand, felt that they were socially and morally obligated to extend help to kin. Requests were seldom denied and none of the requirements such as those demanded by more formal lending institutions were asked. Dependence on relatives and friends was not limited to material needs. In a study done by Alix (1996) in Ormoc City after the flashflood that left thousands of people dead, the survivors exhibited emotional dependence on friends and relatives as a coping strategy. It is important, however, to recognize that relatives used as social safety nets are not entirely without cost, for much as repayment of money loans was not really demanded, repayment in other forms was often expected, such as performing errands and odd jobs for them. A deep debt of gratitude is often felt for the relatives who are often approached for help. Informants from both the study communities articulated that relief from government and non-government agencies would certainly be of great help to them during the critical times of inaagosto and nordeste. They lament, however, the lack of intervention measures from these agencies. The informants themselves seemed reluctant to approach or negotiate with local government officials for aid. According to one community people’s organization leader in Mindoro, limited government budgets do not allow the government to respond to their needs regularly during each lean season. The legal disaster management framework is allowed to release funds only when the area is declared under a state of calamity, which may not always be the case in the event of inaagosto and nordeste. Furthermore, it was mentioned that it was better for the people to be self-reliant and not to count on aid from outside for their troubles

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during nordeste. It would be better to reserve negotiating for government aid for times when they would really need it such as when extreme environmental events occur. Income-earning strategies Job diversification of the husband. The husband was still generally considered to be the breadwinner of the household. It was his responsibility to earn for the needs of the family. While the husband was the breadwinner, the wife was the “pursekeeper” in the sense that she managed the funds turned over to her by her husband for household maintenance. During times when the husband could not engage in his main occupation due to hostile weather conditions, the husband was constrained to seek other means of employment. For instance, because fishing was not possible during the typhoon season in Batangas, some of the fisher-informants took temporary work as security guards. In Mindoro, fisher-informants engaged in small farming, tending vegetable patches whenever they could not fish due to bad weather conditions. Thus, they had quite a number of preoccupations in an annual cycle of work activities. Job diversification of the husband has also been reported as a strategy employed by households in Palawan (Eder, 2000). Budgeting and practising frugality. Budgeting and practising frugality in household expenses were the responsibilities of the wife. Since household financial management was her responsibility, the ideal housewife was one who could expertly make the meager earnings of her husband sufficient for all the family’s needs. It was the wife’s responsibility to allocate amounts for utilities and food needs as well as for other luxuries the budget would allow. A wife who is successful in managing the household budget is considered a gem and made a role model by her neighbors. Wife engages in income-earning activities. Because men were the breadwinners, the role of the wife was customarily relegated to housework. There were instances, however, in Batangas and Mindoro, wherein the husband was laid off from work and this pushed the wives to seek employment or to take the lead in earning for the household. Buy and sell activities were often resorted to by the wife-informants in Batangas and Mindoro. Because of the proximity of Batangas to factory areas nearby, wives in Batangas had also sought temporary employment there. Wife employment was a coping strategy in many instances rather than the norm. Since it was the wife’s responsibility to ensure that the household budget was well managed, it became her responsibility too to make ends meet. Thus in the two study sites, all of the wives, whether employed full time or not, had some “sideline” or extra income earning activities to augment the husband’s income, which was usually short of the household’s needs. None of the husbands had any except for some of the househusbands who assisted their wives in their “sideline”. Buy and sell was a common sideline of the wives. Selling beauty products, food items prepared at home or clothes, oftentimes on an installment basis was common to the wives. Seeking overseas employment. As of 2004, the Philippines was recognized as the second largest labor-exporting country in the world (Ogena, 2004). In this study, employment overseas was the ultimate dream articulated by informants in both Batangas and Mindoro. Since the father was the deemed breadwinner, it was usually the father who was the first choice from a household to seek employment overseas. This was especially true for households where there were small children. However, whenever an opportunity presented itself to the mother, she would often take this

opportunity, with the intention of uplifting the socio-economic conditions of her family. In Mindoro, particularly, one wife-informant articulated a desire for her children to take up nursing as a course in college, so that they could easily find employment abroad. In Batangas, one could easily spot households with OFW members by the type of housing materials they used. Usually, expensive, imported wall tiles were attached to decorate the facade of the house. Their houses were made of sturdier materials such as concrete with tile roofs; they had fencing around the property, and had a well tended flower garden. Informants expressed the wish to possess such a property someday and were hence encouraged to actively seek employment overseas. Children quit school to work. In some of the households, adolescent children, particularly the boys, had to quit school so they could help earn for the family. Though the intention to have the children quit school was temporary, and though there was the promise of returning to their studies once times got better, for most of the informants, out of school periods stretched to lengthy periods until the children felt too embarrassed to return, as they would be the oldest in their class. Thus, many never got to return. The literature has shown that a good education more or less provides a more stable future for an individual in the Philippines (Human Development Network, PHDR, 2002). However, for the households in this study, the current need to survive takes precedence over possible gains in the future. Responding through changes in food patterns Reallocation of food resources in the home. Apportioning food, and prioritizing vulnerable groups and gainfully employed members was a common practice amongst both study sites. In order to ensure that every household member had a share of food, housewives would often resort to dividing the dish into portions. Usually, small children were given priority over adolescents and adults. In Batangas, some parents would skip meals to allow their small children a share. In one household in Mindoro, high school aged children were responsible for securing lunch whilst in school. When asked how they were able to have lunch in school considering they were not given money to buy food, they replied that they had to rely on the goodwill of classmates to share lunch with them, or to ask for leftovers from the school canteen. They admitted that there were times when they had to just play in the school yard to forget their hunger. In Batangas, some households mentioned that food was usually set aside for employed family members especially at dinner time. Gainfully employed household members were the ones who brought money into the household. With other members dependent on their incomes, they were accorded special care so they would not get sick and lose their jobs. Somehow, the dependent household members recognized that if the employed household member lost his or her job, the entire household would suffer. Meal pattern adjustments. Everyday food fare among respondents included food items that did not cost much, such as fish and vegetables. Whenever possible, food was sourced free of cost from neighbors and relatives, or by foraging for root crops and wild fruits in the hills and mountains. Daily menus consisted of rice and only one viand. Dessert was served only during special occasions. Whenever meals had to be sacrificed, it was usually breakfast and snacks. Or people would combine breakfast and lunch together and take brunch. Some informants in Batangas would just have coffee for breakfast. In Mindoro, adults would also just have

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coffee for breakfast, supposedly to “heat up” the stomach and then take a more substantial meal later in the day. It was generally believed that the first thing that one should ingest after a long night’s sleep had to be hot. “Heating up” the stomach in the morning with coffee or any hot meal was necessary to prevent stomach disorders. Every food leftover was saved for consumption in the next meal. Throwing these away was considered to be wasteful practice and was seen as akin to throwing money away since food was bought. Re-inventing food. Cultural classifications of food were reconfigured during the lean food season. What used to be ignored as a potential source of food was utilized. Such foods are referred to in the anthropological literature as famine foods; for example Unson and Montemayor (1998) described the way banana stalk was consumed by the Lumads in the south of the Philippines. Famine foods are defined by cultural categories alone and find no basis in their nutritional content. Such classifications can vary from one cultural group to another and from one socio-cultural and economic context to another. In Batangas, the gurami (Trichogaster pectoralis) was a common species that thrived in the Taal Lake (Dalisay, 2005). However, this was not one of the commercial species caught by fisher folk in Taal. It had no value economically and so the fisher folk did not sell this. It also had no value culturally, as it was not perceived to be fit for human consumption, having lots of bones and very little flesh. Moreover, the fish thrived on the lakeshore and fed on human feces and litter found there. The cultural value of the species was evident in that the lakeshore dwellers would joke about the gurami being fit only for the “taga-bundok”; literally meaning people living in the mountains. Apparently, people living in the mountains held lower social status than lowland dwellers. However, during the lean food season, even those living near the lakeshore or on the plains would eat this species, especially when there was nothing else to eat. Fishing was difficult and dangerous so fishers would temporarily refrain from engaging in this activity. Since the fish thrived near the shore, they were relatively easy to catch and since it was not a common species fished, it did not suffer the fate of other species that became rare due to overfishing. Thus, food classifications shifted during the lean season to allow people to respond positively to food deficits experienced. Also in Batangas, where the staple was rice, eating sweet potato in place of rice during a main meal occasion meant that the household was already running low on the staple and did not have the means to purchase it. In fact, sweet potato replacing the staple was an indicator that the lean food season had arrived. In Mindoro, the fruit of the Talisay (Terminalia catappa L.) tree was not normally considered as food. During the abundant food season the fruit was used as a toy that children would toss around and kick like a ball. During the lean food season, parents would have their children eat this fruit. Adults claimed, however, that only the children ate this fruit. Adults would not eat this even during the lean times. Conclusions and recommendations The study points to the need to redefine disaster from the perspective of government and non-government institutions that could provide valuable assistance to affected populations. While it is true that extreme disasters require immediate attention and aid, moderate disasters that result from regularly occurring natural hazards should be addressed as well. For affected populations, they hardly have time to recover from the

onslaught of the hazards that accompany the lean season: before they are ever able to overcome the effects of the last lean season, the new lean season has arrived. This study also points to the need for community level efforts to address the challenges of the lean season. All of the strategies employed are at the household level. None of the households in the two study areas mentioned taking advantage of community level programs to help ease their burden during the lean season. Inasmuch as studies point to the greater efficiency of responding to disasters when community efforts are operational (Pollisco, 1988), it is important that community programs are available for people to manage on their own with aid from outside. Rather than being reactionary, programs should allow communities not only to respond to or recover from the effects of the lean season but to equip themselves with preventive measures that will forestall devastation or to make them better prepared to face hazards during the lean season. Early warning systems could be installed. The study communities have already been employing coping strategies that have helped them survive the effects of the lean season. These strategies could be made part of programs to aid people adversely affected by the lean season. For instance, community microfinance cooperatives could be set up. The women in this study have already exhibited entrepreneurial skills that could be enhanced for such programs. Moreover, a sense of ownership of these strategies could be emphasized, which could at the same time instill pride among the people concerned. This could lead to greater participation of the stakeholders in programs they have designed and implemented themselves. The community itself can take the lead in implementing and managing the programs with aid and support from the local government. This paper has pointed out the need to get the husbands to be more actively engaged in the coping strategies. Men as partners, especially in such trying times, would greatly reduce the burden of the wives. Wives, on the other hand, have to learn to relegate some of their roles to the husbands to free them of the double burden. While such practices are largely shaped by the dominant gender ideology that favors the men, both the men and women in the study communities can be made more aware of more equitable arrangements that would release them both from oppressive traditions and ultimately, allow them to survive inaagosto or nordeste. References Alix, P.R.E. (1996), “Ormoc revisited: initial and long term stress reactions and coping responses of disaster victims”, Agham Tao, Vol. 8, pp. 24-43. Bankoff, G. (2004), “In the eye of the storm: the social construction of the forces of nature and the climatic and seismic constructions of God in the Philippines”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 35 No. 1, pp. 91-111. Bennagen, P.L. (1996), “Amin Ito: who controls ‘disaster management’?”, Agham Tao, Vol. 8, pp. 57-64. Blolong, Fr.R.R. (1996), “The Ivatan cultural adaptation to typhoons: a self-reliant community from the indigenous development perspective”, Agham Tao, Vol. 8, pp. 12-24. Dalisay, S.N.M. (2005), “Surviving inaagosto: household responses to threats of the lean season”, Philippine Geographical Journal, Vol. 49 Nos 1-4, pp. 121-34. Delfin, F.G. Jr. (2005), “A review of the nature and impact of environmental disasters in the Philippines”, Philippine Geographical Journal, Vol. 49 Nos 1-4, pp. 7-43.

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Eder, J.F. (2000), A Generation Later: Household Strategies and Economic Change in the Rural Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University Press, Quezon City. Gaillard, J.-C., Liamzon, C.C. and Maceda, E.A. (2005), “Act of nature or act of man? Tracking the root causes of increasing disasters in the Philippines”, Philippine Geographical Journal, Vol. 49 Nos 1-4, pp. 45-66. Human Development Network (1997), Philippine Human Development Report, Human Development Network and the United Nations Development Programme, Manila. Juanillo, N.K. (1996), “Female led households manage money better, study says”, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 23 October. Miralao, V.A. (1997), “Household expenditure patterns among male and female-headed households”, Philippine Human Development Report, Human Development Network and the United Nations Development Programme, Manila, pp. 87-98. National Bookstore Incorporated (2006), Atlas of the Philippines and the World for Home and Office, Cacho Hermanos (Subic) Inc., Subic Bay. Ogena, N.B. (2004), in Ananta, A. and Arifin, N. (Eds), “Policies on international migration: Philippine issues and challenges”, in Ananta, A. and Arifin, N. (Eds), International Migration in Southeast Asia, ISEAS Publications, Pasir Panjang, pp. 296-309. Pollisco, A. (1988), “Food security mechanisms at the household level under three agricultural zones in selected provinces in region nine”, unpublished PhD dissertation, Los Banos. Unson, J.M. and Montemayor, J. (1998), “Starving folk turn to banana stalk”, Manila Times, April, p. 16. Corresponding author Soledad Natalia M. Dalisay can be contacted at: [email protected]

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Living with increasing floods: insights from a rural Philippine community Jean-Christophe Gaillard

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UMR 5194 Pacte CNRS, Universite´ de Grenoble, Grenoble, France

Michael R.M. Pangilinan Advocacy for the Development of Central Luzon, Angeles City, Philippines

Jake Rom Cadag Department of Geography, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines, and

Virginie Le Masson Universite´ de Grenoble, Grenoble, France Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider people’s ways of coping with increasing flooding in a Philippine rural community. Design/methodology/approach – The paper relies on extensive field work conducted between July and August 2006. It cross-checks data from different sources including interviews with key informants, a questionnaire-based survey, informal group discussions, passive and stationary observations and photographic documentation. Field work was completed by the collection of secondary written documents. Findings – The paper emphasizes that the capacity of flood-affected people to cope with increasing hazards is rooted in their ability to adjust their everyday lifestyles. Flood-affected people seldom rely on extraordinary measures to face nature’s extremes. People’s ability to adjust their daily life is deeply dependent on the strength of their livelihoods and social network. The kind and variety of livelihoods turned out to be a critical factor in securing the financial means to purchase enough food to satisfy daily needs. Social networking was also found to be critical in providing alternative support in times of crisis. Practical implications – This paper fosters the use of community-based disaster risk reduction programmes coupled with development objectives to enhance people’s capacity to cope with natural hazards. It further underlines the need to empower people to make them less vulnerable in the face of natural hazards through fair access to resources. Originality/value – This article contributes to the understanding of how people cope with natural hazards in the Philippines and provides an array of possible remedial strategies for community-based disaster risk reduction. Keywords Floods, Food controls, Social roles, Philippines Paper type Case study

The authors would like to thank the people of Sagrada, the Tarik Soliman High School faculty and students and Hon. Vice-Mayor Marcelo I. Lacap Jr for their valuable contribution to this study. Helpful comments on early drafts of this paper from Ilan Kelman (Center for International Climate and Environmental Research-Oslo), Soledad Natalia M. Dalisay (University of the Philippines Diliman) and two anonymous reviewers have been greatly appreciated.

Disaster Prevention and Management Vol. 17 No. 3, 2008 pp. 383-395 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0965-3562 DOI 10.1108/09653560810887301

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Introduction The Philippines are known as one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world. Between January 1900 and May 2006, the EMDAT database of the Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) listed 379 disasters that each killed at least more than ten people, hindered the life of more than 100 individuals, or required international aid (Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters, 2006). These events caused economic damages worth US$7 billion and killed more than 48,000 people. Millions of other Filipinos were directly or indirectly affected. Flooding and flood-triggering typhoons top the list of natural phenomena identified with disasters in the archipelago with 60 and 210 events, respectively. The way people cope with flooding may be approached from two different viewpoints. The so-called “dominant” paradigm considers that people’s ability to face natural hazards such as floods largely depends on their perception of the risk. An individual or a society with a low risk perception is likely to adjust poorly to the threat. On the other hand, people with a high risk perception are likely to behave in a positive way in the face of Nature’s threats. This approach emphasizes the rare and extreme dimension of natural hazards (Gaillard, 2007). The dominant paradigm has however been challenged by the proponents of a radical viewpoint (Waddell, 1977; Torry, 1979). Drawing on cases from the developing world, scholars such as O’Keefe et al. (1976), Hewitt (1983), and Wisner et al. (2004) argue that people’s behavior in the face of natural hazards is constrained by social, economic and political forces. Political neglect, social marginalization and limited access to resources compel helpless people to live in hazard-prone areas without appropriate physical and social protection. This perspective emphasizes people’s vulnerability to disasters or their propensity to suffer from damage should natural hazards occur (Cannon, 1994; D’Ercole, 1994). Natural hazards are then viewed as highlighter or amplifier of daily hardship and quotidian emergency (Maskrey, 1989; Wisner, 1993). The present article follows the last argument to investigate the strategies adopted by the members of a small rural Philippine community to cope with recurrent and increasing flooding. Sagrada is a small village located at the coastal edge of the delta of the Pampanga river in the island of Luzon (Figure 1). It is one of the villages of the municipality of Masantol in the province of Pampanga. It is composed of two separate settlements, Sagrada I and II, located on both banks of the Pampanga River that cuts across its administrative jurisdiction. As of June 2006, 1060 people lived in Sagrada. The population is rapidly growing, as the 2000 national census counted only 796 inhabitants (National Statistics Office, 2007). An average household includes 6 people. The population is obviously young with almost one third of the individuals being less than 12 years old and with a high population density of 1,037 people per sq.km. 95 percent of the population is Roman Catholic. The prime livelihood of the people of Sagrada is aquaculture and fishing. However, only about 30 percent of them are lucky middle-size (max. 3-4 ha) fish ponds owners. Most of them, around 65 percent, are fish pond workers or tenants who usually earn between US$20 and US$60 per month. The remaining 5 percent of the population relies on other livelihoods (local transportations, small shops or learned professions) to make a living. Almost all the families of Sagrada enjoy electricity but they still depend on deep wells for their daily water supply. A major impediment to people’s welfare is the lack of a direct road connecting them to the Masantol town proper where the municipal market, the health office and all

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Figure 1. Location of the study area in Central Luzon

administrative functions are located. Only a handful of families own their own transportation means. To reach the town centre, the people of Sagrada have to spend a minimum of 30 minutes travel using rare daily outrigger boats or tricycles, and then another small outrigger boat and tricycle for an approximate cost of US$1.5. The first section of the present article describes the methodology used for the study. The second and third sections document the issue of flooding in the delta of the Pampanga River and its impact on the Sagrada community. The fourth section investigates how the people of Sagrada cope with floods. The final section fosters the use of Community-Based Disaster Risk Reduction (CBDRR) to enhance Sagrada people’s capacity to face natural hazards. Methodology The following discussion relies on extensive field work conducted in Sagrada in July and August 2006. It crosschecks data from different sources. First, a series of 13 interviews with key informants among the villagers enabled identification of the major

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strategies adopted by the people of Sagrada to cope with increasing flooding. Those informants include community leaders, the village chief and secretary, health workers, women leaders, teachers, stores tenders, tricycle drivers and fishpond owners and tenants. Another series of seven interviews were conducted with representatives from the municipal government and larger-scale stakeholders of hazard and disaster management to determine how authorities respond to the flooding problem. Those include the municipal mayor and representatives from the Municipal Planning and Development Office and Department of Agrarian Reform. Finally, geologists and environmental specialists provided updated data on the causes of increasing floods and potential effective remedial measures. The initial series of interviews were completed by a questionnaire-based survey in order to assess the weight of each coping strategies evoked by the foregoing informants through quantitative data. A 33-item questionnaire was administered to 46 households of the village. Questions focused on people’s experience with floods and the way they cope in everyday life. A final set of questions pertained to the profile of the respondents. Questionnaires were carried out using the local Kapampangan language. All the respondents were cooperative and were willing to share their experience. Informal group discussions, passive and stationary observation of the village routine activities and photographic documentation also contributed to a better understanding of the way people cope with increasing flooding in Sagrada. Field work was completed by the collection of secondary written documents such as journal publications, conference proceedings, and relevant press clippings from regional and national newspapers. Both primary and secondary written materials provide information mostly on the flooding hazard and the disaster management policy. Very few sources discuss the response of the population to increasing flooding. Increasing flooding problem in the delta of the Pampanga river Flooding is not a new hazard in the delta of the Pampanga river. The area has always been severely hit by floods. In 1972, the delta of the Pampanga river was inundated during more than 40 days due to intense rainfall (National Economic and Development Authority, 1973). In Sagrada, floodwater levels exceeded the average height of a person. However, the nature of flooding has dramatically changed during the last two decades. Until the 1980s, flooding was largely associated with heavy rainfall and river overflow. Floods were thus viewed both as natural hazards and natural resources as they provided natural irrigation for rice paddies. There eventually was a critical shift with the fast subsidence of the delta of the Pampanga river. In some places of the delta, land is sinking by 3 to 4 cm per year. The most significant consequence of this phenomenon is the inland progression of seawater during high tide resulting in almost permanent flooding in the lower areas. In Sagrada, 85 percent of the people interviewed as part of this study witnessed a yearly increase in the height of flooding. Visual observation of deep wells (Plate 1) confirms that land subsidence reaches around 1 cm per year. Respondents note that major tide incursions in Sagrada regularly flood the area and may require one day to recede. In time of heavy rainfall, it further blocks the rapid evacuation of floodwater towards the sea and thus lengthens flooding. Rodolfo and Siringan (2006; Siringan and Rodolfo, 2003) suggest that the first and foremost factor in explaining land subsidence and the shift in the nature of flooding in the delta of the Pampanga river is the important extraction of groundwater to sustain agricultural and domestic needs. Extraction of groundwater is possible

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Plate 1. Rate of land subsidence in Sagrada. The deep well was drilled in 1997. Between 1997 and 2003, the level of the ground subsided by 5 cm (A). Between 2003 and 2006, the level of the ground further subsided by 2.5 cm (B)

because of the non-respect of national laws which prevent the drilling of deep wells within given distances. It further reflects the prevalence of client-patron relationships between local politicians and rural poor. Deep wells are often drilled in times of election campaigns, as the initiative of political candidates who look for allegiance among the masses. In return, the poor are those who suffer the most from flooding. The almost permanent dredging of the Pampanga river below sea level also favors the penetration of seawater inland. Despite these evidences, anthropogenic subsidence is largely ignored by the authorities (Rodolfo and Siringan, 2006) which still associate flooding with heavy rainfall and increasing riverbed siltation. There are three factors which facilitate this demonstration. First, the contemporary climate change appears as a powerful argument to sustain the heavy rainfall and sea-level rise theories in the Philippines (President of the Philippines, 2007). The link between climate change and increasing flooding in the delta of the Pampanga river is very difficult to prove or disprove. Rainfall amount actually slightly decreased during the second half of the 20th century but there seems to be no available data on rainfall skewness (Wernstedt and Spencer, 1967; Jose et al., 1996; Pajuelas, 2000). On the other hand, Bindoff et al. (2007) estimate the past 50 years’ sea-level rise at 1.6 mm per year in the Pacific Region, which is very much slower than anthropogenic subsidence. The second factor is the dramatic decrease in forest cover and the associated erosion and siltation which are often easily cited as a major cause for disasters in the Philippines (Kummer, 1992; Gaillard et al., 2007). The third factor is the 1991 eruption of Mt Pinatubo and lingering lahars which brought a huge amount of sediments to the Pampanga delta area (Mount Pinatubo Emergency – Project Management Office, 1998). Yet, the critical shift in the nature of

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flooding in the area occurred in the 1980s thus largely debunking the Pinatubo theory as a significant cause of increasing floods. In line with this last set of explanations, however, the Philippine government exerted much effort “to augment the reduced carrying capacities of the silted waterways” (Mount Pinatubo Emergency – Project Management Office, 1998). Preventive measures focus on dredging activities and protective structures such as dikes and river walls which efficiency has been challenged by Rodolfo and Siringan (2006). In Masantol, during the late 1990s, the Pampanga river bed has been enlarged and huge dikes and sluice gates have been built to control and channel floodwaters towards the sea as part of the Pampanga Delta Development Project (Table I). This project was funded by the Japanese government which disbursed around 66 million US$ between 1990 and 2001. The construction of the dikes has been undertaken by Korean and Philippine contractors (Tsubugo, 2005). The 750 m widening of the river bed covered a large area of Sagrada. The former villages which were located on the original riverbanks were inundated and vast tracts of agricultural lands were condemned to accommodate the river in the event of major discharge. The government had to eventually accommodate the resettlement of 193 families beyond the dikes. Japanese funds further enabled the construction of public buildings (Table I) but no project pertained to the livelihoods of the relocatees. Both the increasing flooding and the remedial measures set up by the government had a deep impact on the Sagrada community. The impact of increasing flooding on Sagrada community The critical shift in the nature of flooding had a deep impact on the daily life of the people of Sagrada. First, the resettlement of the Sagrada community is a direct consequence of the government policy set up to face increasing flooding. It was however not planned in the initial project. Only the fierce resistance of the local community to the diking program and forced temporary evacuation compelled the authorities to consider the long-term relocation of the victims in 1997. Each land and house owner affected by the construction of the dike received financial compensation for their lost home and land, and eventually a new house and lot on the present location of the village. Yet, the resettlees have to pay back US$8 per year over a period of ten years to the municipal government in order to definitively own their new home.

Table I. Major activities undertaken as part of the Pampanga Delta development project

Dike construction Sluice gates River widening Dredging volume of sediments Land acquisition Number of affected households Number of relocated households Primary school buildings constructed Community halls constructed Churches constructed Deep wells drilled Source: Adapted from Tsubugo (2005)

14.2 km (right bank)/13.2 km (left bank) 16 750 m 12,205,000 cubic meters 11,603,000 sq.m 1,851 (863 on right bank/988 on left bank) 1,283 10 8 11 29

The most significant change has been the shift from subsistence farming to cash aquaculture. Until the 1980s, the people of Sagrada used to till rice on a bi-annual scheme. The 1960 census of agriculture (Bureau of the Census and Statistics, 1963) reported that rice paddies covered 2,900 ha. in Masantol for an annual harvest of 7,480 tons. This was enough to sustain one-year needs for the people of Sagrada. At that time, farmers also planted vegetables and fruits on the paddies dikes and caught fish in the surrounding rivers and creeks. They were food secured. Eventually, the progressive incursion of seawater compelled farmers to abandon rice, vegetable and fruit farming and to shift to fish ponds. The 1991 census of agriculture (National Statistics Office, 1995) mentioned that rice paddies only covered 1,900 ha. of the whole Masantol; a decrease of 35 percent in 30 years. Nowadays, the people of Sagrada thus depend on the sale of fish, crabs and prawns to buy rice and other food stuffs. Along with livelihoods, rituals and traditions associated with rice farming progressively vanished. Some elders remember the Christian processions intended to ask for more rains or conversely to stop flooding. Increasing floods also bring growing health problems like coughs, fever, diarrhea and skin diseases. Medicines are not available in the village and are expensive in the town proper (US$2 for a small tube of ointment to treat skin infections). Skin diseases are particularly frequent as all sorts of wastes and fecal matters are usually dumped into floodwaters. According to the village health worker, children are the most severely affected. During flooding episodes, children are further affected by the suspension of classes at the local high-school and neighboring elementary schools. Coping with increasing flooding Sagrada is an isolated community. Yet, during flooding events, only 52 percent of the flood-affected people choose to evacuate to relatives’ home or to the local chapel. Those who choose to remain at home place their furniture and appliances on top of chairs and tables; some put them on the second floor Some evacuate to the second floor and, in extreme situations, onto their roof. The people of Sagrada can hardly rely on external aid. The village calamity fund is around US$50 per year and is only available once the area is declared under state of calamity. In time of emergency, aid is sometimes provided by local politicians, the Department of Social Welfare and Development, the Red Cross and local, national or international NGOs and foundations. Overall however, external aids remain rare and limited. The people of Sagrada usually rely on their own resources to face flooding and associated livelihood insecurity. The people of Sagrada resort to a wide range of local coping strategies. As mentioned above, the major issue is livelihoods as villagers depend on selling fish, crabs and prawns, which are threatened. Interviews with key informants show that only wealthy land owners can afford to raise fish ponds embankments (Plate 2) or stretch nets to prevent fish from escaping. Small fishpond owners and other tenants do not have the same capacity as the wealthy land owners. They are either forced to harvest fish whilst still in the immaturity stage or they lose their catch. In both cases, their purchasing power is severely affected. It is thus evident that a significant number of coping strategies relate to food and diet (Table II). 72 percent of the questionnaire-based survey respondents save food in preparation for floods and 43 percent change their diet during flooding episodes. A total

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Plate 2. Fish pond embankment raised above its original level (indicated by the top of the small sluice gate) to face increasing flooding in Sagrada

Coping strategies

Table II. Strategies adopted by the people of Sagrada to cope with increasing flooding (n ¼ 46)

Save food in provision for flooding Reduce food intake for each meal Pray more often Postpone debt repayment Evacuate temporarily Borrow money from relatives Cancel special occasion (anniversary, christening, etc.) Save money in provision for flooding Engage in sideline activities (laundry, sewing, etc.) Build embankment Change diet Reduce the number of meals Relocate temporarily Save on children’s schooling (snacks) Engage children in livelihood activities Pawn land Pawn jewellery

Percentage of people adopting this measure 72 72 70 70 52 51 50 50 48 43 43 41 25 20 17 15 15

of 70 percent also reduce their food intake. Most reduce the quantity of rice for each meal and the accompanying viand is sometimes limited to soy sauce, salt and water. Flood-affected people also often skip breakfast or only eat biscuits with coffee. Half of the population also cancels the celebration of birthdays and anniversaries and other

special occasions. Weddings and christenings are seldom scheduled during rainy season. The second series of coping strategies pertain to the financial capacity to purchase food and sustain other daily needs (Table II). One kilo of rice costs approximately US$0.4 and satisfies the needs of four people for one day. To be able to buy enough rice, 70 percent of the people interviewed use to postpone the repayment of debts contracted to relatives and friends. 51 percent of the respondents also resort to further loans to acquire some cash. Favourite loaners include relatives, friends, small retailing shops and fish nursery owners. Pawning of assets (land, jewelry, mobile phones) is also widespread among the inhabitants of Sagrada when facing flooding. Another significant number of people rely on sideline livelihoods (48 percent) and the involvement of children in the economic market (17 percent) to secure additional incomes in time of crisis. To save money, some people also send their children to relations in Manila or in other surrounding cities. Gambling, drinking, smoking and other vices are also limited in time of flooding. Women play a significant role when floods hit Sagrada. They engage in sideline activities such as doing laundry for rich neighbors or street selling. They are usually tasked with asking relatives and friends for small loans. Besides women’s contribution, religion is also of great importance as 70 percent of the respondents admit that they pray more often in times of flooding. It is noteworthy that strategies to cope with floods are anchored in daily life. Most are adjustments in everyday activities of the flood-affected people rather than extraordinary measures adopted to face extreme and rare natural events. The capacity to adjust everyday activities, however, largely depends on the strength of people’s livelihoods. Rich fish pond owners or businessmen do not suffer much from flooding. They usually own two- or three-storey houses which are often raised on embankments (Plate 3). They have savings in bank accounts, and food security is usually not a problem. Small fish pond owners have significant incomes but limited savings. They further possess resistant houses and small capital which they can rely on in time of emergency. Fish pond tenants depend on a small monthly wage (usually US$60) and sometimes benefit from one 50-kilo sack of rice per month. They are allowed to catch as many fish as they need for their personal consumption. However, during flooding episodes, they suffer from the lack of fish and can only rely on their small wage and sack of rice to sustain their daily needs. The hardest hit in time of flooding are daily-wage and other informal workers. After the initial demand for raising ponds dikes, daily-wage workers quickly suffer from the lack of jobs in the village, and starvation. People engaged in local transportations and small retailing businesses are also affected as floods hinder them to continue their livelihood activities. Social networking is also critical. It involves two major dimensions of Philippine culture. First is the indigenous sense of communality or “pagkikipagkapwa,” very much evident in the mutualization of labor named “bayanihan”. The pagkikipagkapwa provides invaluable support in times of crisis and allows disaster victims to rely on neighbors, friends and relatives for small money loans or food. On the other hand, bayanihan is critical to mobilize labor in emergency preventive actions such as raising or building fish ponds embankments and securing furnitures and appliances.

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Plate 3. On the right side, the one-storey house of a poor household stands on wood posts a few centimeters above the ground. On the left side, the four-storey home of a rich family is built on a cemented embankment which is almost one meter high

Closing recommendations The foregoing sections emphasized that the capacity of the people of Sagrada to cope with increasing flooding is rooted in their ability to adjust their everyday lifestyle. Flood-affected people barely rely on extraordinary measures to face nature’s extremes. People’s ability to adjust their daily life is deeply dependent on the strength of their livelihoods and social networks. The kind and variety of livelihoods turn out to be critical in securing the financial means to purchase enough food to sustain daily needs. Social networking is critical in providing alternative support in time of crisis. In facing this situation, the national and local governments still rely on a reactive disaster management system which emphasizes the extreme dimension of flooding. The sole emergency aid may temporarily relieve flood victims from critical situations but it fails to strengthen their ability to avoid falling in those situations. The official disaster management policy thus limits its focus to treating the symptoms but disregards the root sources of harm. It is today acknowledged that one of the most sustainable ways to enhance people’s capacity to cope with natural hazards is through Community-Based Disaster Risk Reduction (CBDRR) programs coupled with development objectives (e.g. Anderson and Woodrow, 1989; Maskrey, 1989; Delica-Willison, 2004). CBDRR emphasizes the participation of affected communities in both the evaluation of their needs and in the ways to sustain them. CBDRR empowers communities with self-developed and culturally acceptable ways of coping with crises brought by the occurrence of natural hazards. It further stresses the importance of sustainable livelihoods in enabling people

to live with risks (Cannon et al., 2003; Twigg, 2004; United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, 2004). In the Philippines, a number of non-governmental organizations have achieved great success by adopting such a community-based bottom-up approach (e.g. Anderson and Woodrow, 1989; Delica, 1999; Heijmans, 2004; Luna, 2001), notably in flood-prone areas (Heijmans and Victoria, 2001; Luna, 2003). These projects, however, achieved less attention. Indeed, as previously mentioned in the case of the delta of the Pampanga River, the Philippine government traditionally focuses on structural and top-down measures geared towards dealing with the extreme and rare dimension of natural hazards (Gaillard et al., 2005). Beyond coping in time of crisis, the present study underlines the need to empower people to make them less vulnerable in the face of natural hazards. Mitigating vulnerability requires fair access to land and resources (e.g. Sen, 1983; Wisner et al., 2004). These measures go far beyond the sole prevention of “rare” and “extreme” natural hazards. Structural and technocratic prevention often fails to mitigate people’s daily suffering as shown in the case of the Pampanga river delta. Mitigating disaster vulnerability and enhancing people’s coping strategies should be part of the larger development agenda.

References Anderson, M. and Woodrow, P. (1989), Rising from the Ashes: Development Strategies in Times of Disasters, Westview Press, Boulder, CO. Bindoff, N.L., Willebrand, J., Artale, V., Cazenave, A., Gregory, J., Gulev, S., Hanawa, K., LeQue´re´, C., Levitus, S., Nojiri, Y., Shum, C.K., Talley, L.D. and Unnikrishnan, A. (2007), “Observations: oceanic climate change and sea level”, in Solomon, S., Qin, D., Manning, M., Chen, Z., Marquis, M., Averyt, K.B., Tignor, M. and Miller, H.L. (Eds), Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the 4th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, NY, pp. 385-432. Bureau of the Census and Statistics (1963), Bureau of the Census and Statistics Census of the Philippines – 1960: Agriculture – Vol. I – Report by Province: Pampanga, Bureau of the Census and Statistics, Manila. Cannon, T. (1994), “Vulnerability analysis and the explanation of ‘natural’ disasters”, in Varley, A. (Ed.), Disasters, Development and Environment, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, pp. 13-30. Cannon, T., Twigg, J. and Rowell, J. (2003), Social Vulnerability, Sustainable Livelihoods and Disasters, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance Department and Sustainable Livelihoods Support Office, Department for International Development, London. Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters (2006), EM-DAT: The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database, Universite´ Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, available at: www.cred.be/emdat (accessed 12 June 2006). D’Ercole, R. (1994), “Les vulne´rabilite´s des socie´te´s et des espaces urbanise´s: concepts, typologies, mode d’analyse”, Revue de Ge´ographie Alpine, Vol. 32 No. 4, pp. 87-96. Delica, Z.G. (1999), “Community mobilization for early warning”, Philippine Planning Journal, Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 30-40.

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Delica-Willison, Z. (2004), “Vulnerability reduction: a task for the vulnerable people themselves”, in Bankoff, G., Frerks, G. and Hilhorst, D. (Eds), Mapping Vulnerability: Disasters, Development and People, Earthscan, London, pp. 145-58. Gaillard, J.-C. (2007), “De l’origine des catastrophes: phe´nome`nes extreˆmes ou aˆprete´ du quotidien?”, Natures Sciences Socie´te´s, Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 44-7. Gaillard, J.-C., Liamzon, C.C. and Maceda, E.A. (2005), “Act of nature or act of man? Tracking the root causes of increasing disasters in the Philippines”, Philippine Geographical Journal, Vol. 49 Nos 1-4, pp. 46-68. Gaillard, J.-C., Liamzon, C.C. and Villanueva, J.D. (2007), “‘Natural’ disaster? A retrospect into the causes of the late-2004 typhoon disaster in Eastern Luzon, Philippines”, Environmental Hazards, Vol. 7 No. 3. Heijmans, A. (2004), “From vulnerability to empowerment”, in Bankoff, G., Frerks, G. and Hilhorst, D. (Eds), Mapping Vulnerability: Disasters, Development and People, Earthscan, London, pp. 115-27. Heijmans, A. and Victoria, L.P. (2001), Citizenry-Based and Development Oriented Disaster Response: Experiences and Practices in Disaster Management of the Citizens’ Disaster Response Network in the Philippines, Center for Disaster Preparedness, Quezon City. Hewitt, K. (1983), “The idea of calamity in a technocratic age”, in Hewitt, K. (Ed.), Interpretation of Calamities, The Risks and Hazards series No. 1, Allen & Unwin Inc., Boston, MA, pp. 3-32. Jose, A.M., Francisco, R.V. and Cruz, N.A. (1996), “A study on impact of climate variability/change on water resources in the Philippines”, Chemosphere, Vol. 33 No. 9, pp. 1687-704. Kummer, D.M. (1992), Deforestation in the Postwar Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University Press, Quezon City. Luna, E.M. (2001), “Disaster mitigation and preparedness: the case of NGOs in the Philippines”, Disasters, Vol. 25 No. 3, pp. 216-26. Luna, E.M. (2003), “Endogenous system of responses to river flooding as a disaster subculture: a case study of Bula, Camarines Sur”, Philippine Sociological Review, Vol. 51, pp. 135-53. Maskrey, A. (1989), Disaster Mitigation: A Community Based Approach, Development Guidelines No. 3, Oxfam, Oxford. Mount Pinatubo Emergency – Project Management Office (1998), Mount Pinatubo Emergency – Project Management Office Pinatubo-Related Flood Mitigation Activities – Pampanga Delta Area (Pinatubo Side), Mount Pinatubo Emergency – Project Management Office, San Fernando. National Economic and Development Authority (1973), Central Luzon Flood Disaster of 1972 and a Year after, National Economic Development Authority, Manila. National Statistics Office (1995), 1991 Census of Agriculture: Pampanga, National Statistics Office, Manila. National Statistics Office (2007), 2000 Census of Population and Housing Final Counts by Region, by Province and by Barangay, National Statistics Office, Manila, available at: http://census. gov.ph/census2000/index.html (accessed 30 October 2007). O’Keefe, P., Westgate, K. and Wisner, B. (1976), “Taking the naturalness out of natural disasters”, Nature, Vol. 260 No. 5552, pp. 566-7. Pajuelas, B.G. (2000), “A study of rainfall variations in the Philippines: 1950-1996”, Science Diliman, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 1-28.

President of the Philippines (2007), Creating the Presidential Task Force on Climate Change, President of the Philippines Administrative Order No. 171, Malacan˜ang Palace, Manila. Rodolfo, K.S. and Siringan, F.P. (2006), “Global sea-level rise is recognised, but flooding from anthropogenic land subsidence is ignored around Northern Manila Bay, Philippines”, Disasters, Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 118-39. Sen, A.K. (1983), Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Siringan, F.P. and Rodolfo, K.S. (2003), “Relative sealevel changes and worsening floods in the Western Pampanga delta: causes and some possible mitigation measures”, Science Diliman, Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 1-12. Torry, W.I. (1979), “Hazards, hazes and holes: a critique of The Environment as Hazard and general reflections on disaster research”, Canadian Geographer, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 368-83. Tsubugo, T. (2005), Pampanga Delta Development Project – Flood Control Component, Project Evaluation Report, Japan Bank for International Cooperation, Tokyo. Twigg, J. (2004), Disaster Risk Reduction: Mitigation and Preparedness in Development and Emergency Programming, Good Practice Review No. 9, Vol. 9, Humanitarian Practice Network, London. United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (2004), Living with Risk: A Global Review of Disaster Reduction Initiatives, United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, Geneva. Waddell, E. (1977), “The hazards of scientism: a review article”, Human Ecology, Vol. 5 No. 1, pp. 69-76. Wernstedt, F.L. and Spencer, J.E. (1967), The Philippine Island World, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA. Wisner, B. (1993), “Disaster vulnerability: scale, power, and daily life”, Geojournal, Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 127-40. Wisner, B., Blaikie, P., Cannon, T. and Davis, I. (2004), At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability, and Disasters, 2nd ed., Routledge, London. Corresponding author Jean-Christophe Gaillard can be contacted at: [email protected]

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Mareen Gehlich-Shillabeer Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, UK Abstract Purpose – It is imperative that microcredit organisations (MCOs) have a high level of awareness of the environmental context in which their clients pursue their livelihoods. This is particularly true for regions that experience regular environmental and economic shocks. However, to date this level of analysis has been largely absent from impact studies. The purpose of this paper is to overcome this lack of contextual analysis by using Bangladesh as a pertinent example. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on empirical data and a wide range of literature from a variety of disciplines, including geography, development studies, economics and anthropology, the paper aims to provide an in-depth analysis of the dual impact of flooding and microcredits in Bangladesh. Findings – Over the last few years the use of preventive mitigation and coping strategies has declined in Bangladesh. The most widely cited reason for this is financial constraints as a result of declining rural incomes despite a large presence of MCOs in the country. In order to overcome cash shortages many people have resorted to borrowing from a variety of sources, which has become effectively the single most important coping strategy employed. In conjunction with lowered debt capacity and restrictive terms under which microcredits are disbursed, higher indebtedness, creating a potential for poverty traps, is the outcome. Originality/value – For MCOs to be able to claim that their work alleviates poverty they have to demonstrate sensitivity towards the needs of their clients. Yet, the added risks imposed by recurring environmental stressors have been markedly absent from their studies. This paper proposes that the environmental context not only is important but also draws attention to some of the negative consequences that it can have on livelihood sustainability. Keywords Climatic hazards, Poverty, Bangladesh Paper type Research paper

Introduction Since the 1998 flood my family’s life has become much harder. We were not rich before, but we had a house and most of the time we did not go hungry. Then the floods came and we could not honour our micro-credit repayments. We had to take out more loans, to buy food, to rebuild the house. Now we have nothing; and my husband left too.

Disaster Prevention and Management Vol. 17 No. 3, 2008 pp. 396-409 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0965-3562 DOI 10.1108/09653560810887310

Over the past two decades microcredits have advanced from a “novel” idea to a Nobel Peace Prize winning concept for poverty alleviation (Rogaly, 1996; Carlin, 2006). Microcredit Organisations (MCOs) reporting of low default rates and stories of “empowered” women have created an impression that poverty in low income countries (LICs) is slowly being obliterated (see Develtere and Huybrechts, 2005). Yet, only a few studies pay attention to the environmental context in which people pursue their livelihoods and in which MCOs offer their services (see Nagarajan, 1998; Zaman, 1999; Pearl and Phillips, 2001; AIDMI, 2005; Chakrabarti and Bhatt, 2006; AIDMI, 2006;

Aliage and Moseley, 2007). While hazard and development studies are filled with life-stories in which a crisis event is followed by a slow decent into poverty, these are intriguingly absent in microcredit narratives. Perhaps many studies applied the same restrictions that Chowdhury et al. (2005, p. 301) imposed on their research by selecting only areas in Bangladesh that were not affected by the 1998 flood “because the devastation and deprivation created by this tragic event would mask any underlying impact of micro-credit”. A peculiar decision given the country’s proclivity for disasters. To explore the question of the interplay between vulnerability and microcredits this article will briefly revisit the concepts of vulnerability and poverty. The recognition of how theoretical thinking on these two concepts has significantly altered in the past decade is of particular importance to the case study. The remainder of the paper then analyses the context in which microcredits are disbursed in Bangladesh. This paper proposes that the context is not only important but should be an intrinsic element when studying microcredits in LICs.

Vulnerability to hazards: exposure, susceptibility and integrated approaches Vulnerability has emerged as a crucial concept in a variety of disciplines culminating in a wide, and often conflicting, usage (see Cutter, 1996; Fussel, 2005, 2007; Kasperson et al., 2005, Janssen et al., 2006). Despite this conjuncture three distinctive approaches have crystallised relating to the emphasis placed on the starting point in the “chain of events” (Few, 2003). Accordingly to date research has concentrated largely on investigating exposure or susceptibility which, more recently, has been complemented by integrated approaches that offer a more balanced view (see Blaikie et al., 1994; Cutter, 1996; Heijmanns, 2001; Few, 2003; Turner et al., 2003).

From exposure to susceptibility: risk-hazard and social constructivist approaches In the risk-hazard model vulnerability is perceived as being connected to human occupancy of a hazardous location and their risk of exposure to potentially damaging but external trigger events (Cutter, 1996; Hewitt, 1997; Few, 2003). Variations in magnitude, exposure, frequency, duration and impact to a perceived “normality” will then determine the differential impact as measured in loss of life and assets (Cutter, 1996; Hoffman and Oliver-Smith, 1999; Heijmanns, 2001) In this reading, vulnerability is taken as an end point. At the opposite end of the spectrum of vulnerability analysis is the social-constructivist approach. In this reading hazards are location specific occurrences that impact on every individual and household in a geographical area indiscriminately. However, people’s ability to anticipate, cope with and respond to these stressors are mediated by social, political, economic and cultural processes that differ for each individual or group (Wijkman and Timberlake, 1984; Hewitt, 1983, 1997; Varley, 1994; Blaikie et al., 1994; Wisner et al., 2004). As the causes are spatially and temporally removed from the actual environmental stressors, the biophysical origins are often neglected in the analysis (Cutter et al., 2000; Heijmanns, 2001; Devereux, 2001; Wisner et al., 2004).

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Hazardousness of place: integrated approaches to vulnerability With the emergence of the global environmental change literature, integrated approaches, combining exposure and susceptibility analysis, have come to the fore. The “at-risk” (Blaikie et al., 1994; Wisner et al., 2004), “hazard of place” (Cutter, 1993, 1996; Cutter et al., 2000), “coupled vulnerability” (Turner et al., 2003) and “double-exposure” (O’Brien and Leichenko, 2000; O’Brien et al., 2004) frameworks are all manifestations of this shift. Underlying all of these models is the belief that vulnerability is the interaction of biophysical hazards with the social profile of communities in which people are agents of change (Cutter, 1993, 1996). Integrated approaches have been used to investigate processes at different levels, from households to regions, and temporal settings, from historical to extrapolation of the future in terms of climate change impact (Cutter et al., 2000; Cutter, 1996; O’Brien et al., 2004; Wisner et al., 2004). Moreover, due to the models’ place based analysis, which provides an opportunity to anchor multiple stressors in a specific environment as well as to examine their interaction with a population, it makes it a viable tool for a study of vulnerability in LICs (Cutter et al., 2000; Turner et al., 2003; O’Brien et al., 2004). Vulnerability, poverty and poverty traps Vulnerability to poverty Most research on vulnerability suggests that while the concept is closely linked to poverty they should be understood as two divergent phenomena (see Watts and Bohle, 1993; Lok-Dessallien, 1998; Moser, 1998). However, very often the geography of vulnerability and poverty overlap. As Lewis (1999 cited in Few, 2003, p. 50) explains “the recognition and identification of locationally or socially vulnerable sectors of populations is itself only an indicator on the surface, so to speak, of invisible and intangible social, economic and political undercurrents”. Thus, locality often masks conscious trade-offs between available economic opportunities and risk to hazards that are perceived as remote vis-a`-vis daily survival (Blaikie and Brookfield, 1987; Wisner et al., 2004). The literature on chronic and transient poverty has been especially insightful in this respect. Exposing the micro- and macro-level processes that “are responsible for individuals, households and communities sliding into long-term poverty; maintain the poor in poverty; and ensure responses, in the form of economic behaviours and activities, that reduce investment, asset formation and economic growth” (Barrientos, 2007, p. 1) vulnerability has come to be seen as both a cause and symptom of poverty. Thereby creating a mutually reinforcing cycle from which it is difficult to escape (Cardona, 2003; Prowse, 2003). More recently it was put forward that the relationship between vulnerability and poverty may even have the potential to create poverty traps (Dercon, 2004; Adato et al., 2006; Carter and Barrett, 2006; Carter et al., 2007). Vulnerability and poverty traps A poverty trap refers to a households’ and/or individuals’ inability to overcome the structures that keep them in an inveterate state of deprivation (Barrientos, 2007). Although the reasons for this are manifold there is a measure of agreement suggesting that poverty incidences rise starkly with uninsured losses involving low asset and entitlement households (Sen, 1982, 1999; Dercon, 2002; Hoddinott, 2006). In these circumstances even relatively minor shocks can inhibit full recovery (Hoddinott, 2006; Carter et. al., 2007). While poverty is not rooted in market failures alone households are

more likely to recover if they can protect their assets through access to financial and labour markets (Barrientos, 2007; Adato et al., 2006; Wisner et al., 2004). Microcredit organisations (MCOs) are well placed to overcome these obstacles and serve as a conduit between low income households and markets. By providing financial services to set up and run micro-enterprises they have proven that the poor are bankable in addition to offering an outlet for the perceived unmet credit demand that exists in many LICs (Khandker, 2001). This is particularly true for the rural areas which hitherto had been neglected for reasons of seasonal and variable incomes along with high transaction costs for the screening of applicants and disbursement of loans (Harper, 2007a). Offering micro-banking, in turn, has enabled people to diversify into non-seasonal businesses. Rickshaw pulling, goat, poultry and cow rearing as well as petty trading ensure fairly steady incomes and stabilise consumption especially during periods of crises (Ahmad, 2007; Harper, 2007b). In some cases, therefore, microcredits assist with income smoothing through the provision of an additional source of earnings that can be used for education, health expenditure and savings (Khandker, 2001; Pearlman, 2006). Microfinance has been credited with being “unrivalled in its power to change the economic fate” of the poor (Wilson, 2007, p. 98; Khandker, 2003; Yunus and Jolis, 1998). So much so, that the international donor community had committed US$1 billion in 2004 to the microfinance sector (The Economist, 2005b, 2005a). In theory, therefore, microcredit borrowers should be well protected against entering poverty traps. In reality this is not always the case. Hulme (2007, p. 19) noted that not all microcredit “produces favourable results, especially for poor people working in low return-activities, in saturated markets that are poorly developed and where environmental and economic shocks are common” (emphasis added). It is surprising therefore, that very few studies have considered the impact of natural hazards on the client base (see Chowdhury et al., 2005; Pitt and Khandker, 1998; Khandker, 2001, 2003; but see Brown and Nagarajan, 2000; Pearl and Phillips, 2001; Zaman, 1999). This is particularly true for the most saturated microcredit market in the world, Bangladesh, where a disaster occurs on average every one and a half years. Natural hazards and micro-credits: a case study of Bangladesh Research site and data collection Although bulk of research was carried out in 2007-2008 the study also draws on qualitative data collected in northern Bangladesh in 2005. Using a variety of research techniques including in-depth semi-structured surveys, group discussion as well as participant observation 55 households comprising of 74 borrowers with sixteen different non-governmental organisations and banks offering micro-credit were identified. Two-thirds of all households engaged in borrowing from multiple organisations and one-third of households had two or more borrowers. The three leading MCOs serving the sample population are Grameen Bank (GB) (39 per cent), BRAC (9 percent) and ETD (6 per cent). In addition, personal and email interviews were conducted with the three biggest lenders in Bangladesh (GB, BRAC and ASA) both at field and senior management level. Informal personal and email interviews with employees of national and international organisations complete the analysis. All the empirical data was triangulated using secondary data from academic and practitioner sources.

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Natural hazards in Bangladesh Between 1904 and 2004 Bangladesh has been affected by 282 disasters with nearly two-thirds having occurred since the 1970s alone (EM-DAT[Online], n.d.). What is more, the intensity and frequency of these occurrences are predicted to rise as a result of global environmental change (IPCC, 2001; Guha-Sapir et al., 2004; Hofer and Messerli, 2006). While drought, epidemics, and windstorms contributed to the highest amount of fatalities in the country, in general their devastation is of a lesser magnitude compared to another hazard source: flooding. Owing to the countries flat and low-lying topography, the confluence of three major rivers and heavy monsoon rainfalls, 18 to 60 percent of areas experience rain and river inundation on an annual basis (Hutton and Haque, 2004; Dorosh et al., 2004). While livelihoods are well adapted to barsas, the “normal” seasonal flooding that forms a constituent part of the rural calendar, this is not the case for bonnas (extreme floods). According to the International Disaster Database the 71 recorded flood events affected on average 4.5 million people and resulted in economic losses worth US$130 million per event (EM-DAT[Online], n.d.). As elsewhere floods in Bangladesh do not only have a direct impact but also hidden costs above all in terms of socio-economic development. For instance, almost 50 percent of the 1988-9 development budget was redirected to relief and rehabilitation work due to the 1988 deluge (Brammer, 1990). Notwithstanding the agricultural sector’s dependency on seasonal flooding barsas are estimated to reduce the country’s GDP by 5 percent annually (Guha-Sapir et al., 2004). Yet, despite the potential for long-term negative consequences flooding is often not perceived as a major concern. Even in the most extreme circumstances, it constitutes a temporary disruption of livelihoods and often does not entail an irreversible loss of their assets, as is the case with riverbank erosion (Dorosh et al., 2004; Hofer and Messerli, 2006). Riverbank erosion is a persistent calamity in Bangladesh. The geomorphological processes that contribute to the shifting of the rivers are at work all year-round affecting an estimated one-fifth of the population (Haque, 1997). With approximately 60,000 people being displaced at any given time it is not uncommon for people to have to shift their house up to 15 times during their life-time (Hutton and Haque, 2004; Hofer and Messerli, 2006). Although many will attempt to stay in the vicinity of the lost land, to maintain vital social ties as well as in the hope of securing new land, many more will migrate into district towns or major cities, often becoming more vulnerable and impoverished in the process (Blaikie and Brookfield, 1987; Hofer and Messerli, 2006; Zaman, 1991). It is therefore not surprising that while flooding and erosion are constituent parts of rural life they also pose serious problems to livelihood maintenance (Hutton and Haque, 2004; Hofer and Messerli, 2006). Borrowing: a prime coping strategy in Bangladesh Despite a limitation in available strategies to combat erosion, Bengalis are well versed in coping and adapting to their environment during barsas (see Hartmann and Boyce, 1983; Schmuck-Widman, 1996; Shahabuddin and Zulfiqar, 2006). In recent years though, preventative mitigation and coping strategies appear to have declined in line with falling rural incomes (BBS, 2004). According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics rural monthly per household income in the inter-bonna period of 1999 to 2004 fell by more than seven percent from Tk. 3006 to Tk. 2786 (Table I)[1]. This tendency

appears to have continued into the research period as 51 percent of respondents had an average pre-disaster monthly income of less than Tk. 3000 per month. Consequently disaster preparedness is not financially viable for many households often preventing the use of traditional mitigation measures such as stock-piling of food, moving productive assets and valuables to higher ground as well as raising houses and tubewells. Shahabuddin and Zulfiqar (2006, pp. 6-8) came to similar conclusion in a recent survey. They found that two-thirds of households they had interviewed were unable to recover from financial crises. Whereas 86 percent of participants in a study conducted by Brouwer et al. (2007, p. 323) took no preventative measures at all. Both enquiries found that notwithstanding a number of leading MCOs operating in the area between a third and half of their respondents did not utilise any coping strategies due to lack of money. Borrowing from friends and family has been the most widely utilised strategy to overcome short term financial constraint (Rutherford, 2002; Foster, 2004; Park, 2006; Ahmad, 2007). Yet, as disasters affect every one in the community this “quasi-risk” insurance often becomes unavailable (Shoji, 2006). The void is slowly being filled by formal lending of micro-loans (Dorosh et al., 2004; BBS, 2004; Hofer and Messerli, 2006; Ahmad, 2007). Although only one-fourth of respondents I interviewed loaned from MCOs during the barsa (rainy) season this was mainly because of lack of access to loans owing to “unofficial” close-out periods[2]. Some borrowers have begun to time their loan uptake accordingly. Nevertheless, disbursing new loans during crises situations is not unproblematic or advisable (see Nagarajan, 1998). Dorosh et al. (2004) found that although households managed to smooth their consumption and maintain total expenditures after the 1998 flood this came at the cost of high indebtedness. Two-thirds of the poorest households in the sample accrued a level of debt that was equivalent to 186 percent of their monthly average spending on consumption (Dorosh et al., 2004, p. 223). Although the debt amount decreased progressively over the next 13 months it remained a significant threat to welfare and livelihoods long after the most visible effects had disappeared. In December 1999, 64 percent of households still had outstanding credits of almost Tk. 4000 (Dorosh et al., 2004p. 232). Although it is too early to stipulate the long term consequences of the 2007 floods, the outstanding loans to MCO in my survey ranged from Tk. 5,000 to Tk. 80,000 with an average debt of Tk. 21020. Many respondents were unable to service their liabilities during the peak flood period and more than 70 per cent stated that they have cut their food intake in order to ensure timely repayment of instalment. Moreover, based on prior experience many respondents feel that they will be unable to recover to pre-flood levels within the next two to three years. Offering

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Per household Income (Tk) Residence

All

National Urban Rural

5,302 8,857 4,306

March 2004 Poor 3,114 4,488 2,786

Non-poor

All

6,796 11,295 5,404

4,812 8,167 4,285

Source: Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (2004)

May 1999 Poor 3,229 4,741 3,006

Non-poor 5,971 10,462 5,235

Table I. Monthly per household income March 2004 and May 1999

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micro-credits in areas with recurrent natural hazards might not be the optimal solution for poverty alleviation. Debt capacity and repayment suspension One of the reasons for the popularity of micro-credits is the performance on loan recovery where “anything below 95 percent is considered unsatisfactory” by donor organisations (Harper, 2007a, p. 39). However, loan recovery does not give any indication of whether people are able to pay back the loans without suffering additional destitution. In other words, debt recovery relies heavily on the debt capacity of the borrowers which was defined by Von Pischke (1991, p. 177) as follows: lenders are able to recover loans on schedule only when the repayment capacity of the borrower equals or exceeds debt services which consist of principal and interest due for payment. Borrowers are able to repay their loans on time without suffering hardship only when their repayment capacity equals or exceeds the debt service due according to the loan contract (emphasis added).

In order to be consistent with the MCOs aim to serve as a catalyst for economic development, the repayment capacity should be exceeding the debt service by a considerable margin. However, research shows that this is commonly not the case (Hulme and Moseley, 1996; Pearl and Phillips, 2001; Ahmad, 2007; Dichter and Harper, 2007). With rural marketing facilities restricted by low infrastructural development and few absorption capacities for new business only a small number of rural MCO members are able to operate self-sustaining and full-time growth oriented business (Rutherford, 2002; Bateman, 2007; Allen, 2007). Similarly a study by Care Bangladesh (2006 cited in S.M. Rahman, 2007a) concluded that only half of all the disbursed loans were used in a productive manner. The remainder was utilised to cover consumption needs, medical costs, education and some non-productive asset creation such as repairing the house. My study found that the four most cited activities funded by the participating households included food consumption (87 per cent), paying off other loans (77 per cent), medical treatment (76 per cent) and educational expenditure (49 per cent). Productive activities, such as livestock/poultry rearing (36 per cent), trading (34 per cent) and farming (28 per cent), ranked considerably lower. Moreover, some respondents suggested loaning for productive activities is only pursued in the early stages of their membership. Any attempt at debt recovery therefore has the potential to decrease household well-being even further. Despite this the lack of debt capacity, repayment suspension is granted only in very exceptional circumstances (Rutherford, 2002). Even during major disasters, such as the 1998 and 2004 floods, payments were at best postponed until flood waters had receded. BRAC, for instance, instructed their managers to “apply their judgment and discretion with borrowers who could not repay” (Zaman, 1999, p. 16). Others, such as GB, only followed suit after intense outside pressure (Euroseas, pers. commun.). Although GB’s provisions have become more flexible under the Grameen Bank II (GB2) programme, in effect repayment suspension and access to savings during emergencies can be still difficult to obtain[3]. At a time when household incomes and employment opportunities are at their lowest weekly instalments continue to extol a large share of the expenditures (Pearl and Phillips, 2001; Harper, 2007a; Ahmad, 2007). Moreover, decisions regarding repayment suspensions that could enhance clients’ well-being are often bound up in the organisational structures of an MCO.

MCOs: organisational structures and loan recycling In many MCOs the “discretionary power” to grant a stay of payment does not rest with the fieldworker or the branch manager but rather with managers higher up in the hierarchy. This is important as hierarchical decision making and operational autonomy notably affects the ability of borrowers to cope with and recover from emergencies both in positive and negative terms (Wood and Sharif, 1997; Hulme and Moseley, 1996). As mentioned above, BRAC and GB’s handling of the 1998 flood can be found at opposite ends of the spectrum. In line with its decentralised and bottom-up operational structure, BRAC managers were able to act upon individual needs and circumstances of borrowers due to the discretionary powers invested in them (Zaman, 1999; Chowdhury and Alam, 1997). GB’s decision making, on the other hand, was hierarchical and uniform in line with its centralised operational set up (Hashemi and Morshed, 1997). A GB fieldworker explained in response to the 2007 flood that “only regional managers or their superiors can declare the entire village(s) a disaster zone. Only after this has taken place will instalments be stopped until the water has receded. However, the missed payments will be added to the end of the 44 week repayment period. If they cannot pay, interest will be charged” (pers. commun., 2007)[4]. While some people interviewed stated that they received no stay of payment at all, the majority conceded that they were given a “grace” period of a maximum of two weeks. Though the vast majority agreed that this was more due to the fieldworkers not being able to get to the collection points. Moreover, almost all agreed that the time given was not enough given the prolonged period and intensity of the floods. Consequently, many had to resort to additional borrowing from informal sources (Pearl and Phillips, 2001; Shoji, 2006). Indeed, the claim by many MFIs that their clients drastically reduce their lending from mahajans (local moneylender) does not appear to be well-founded. Almost 60 percent of respondents interviewed relied on one or more money lender for emergency purposes throughout the year. A decade on from the “flood of the century” some MCOs are still attempting to recover portfolio losses offering clients an alternative route out of financial problems (GB fieldworker, 2007; see also Pearl and Phillips, 2001). One of these is the recycling of old loans by paying smaller but regular amounts. Once half the outstanding loan is repaid, clients are allowed to take out a second loan to help pay off the previous loan (Yunus, 2002). Loan recycling has become a common practice in many MCOs (see Rahman, 1999, 2001; Pearl and Phillips, 2001; Ahmad, 2007). As Zaman (1999, p. 16) elucidates “the idea of issuing 50 per cent of current loans as fresh loans was based on the assumption that whatever cash in hand households had at the time of the floods was used up for immediate consumption needs. The extra liquidity was intended for daily expenses during the crisis, as well as for productive investment”. However, handing out more money on credit should never be a solution in itself as over time it can change attitudes and erode cautiousness (Nagarajan, 1998; Dichter, 2007; Allen, 2007). Accordingly many clients “often fail to break out of income poverty and many even get caught up in an increasing debt-burden syndrome and slide further into poverty, let al.one moving on to significantly higher levels of income and living standards” (Ahmad, 2007, p. 47). Further research and policy implications “Microcredit is generally most appropriate where ongoing economic activity and sufficient household cash flow already exist” (CGAP, 2005, p. 8). The findings from Bangladesh suggest that despite the long existence and wide availability of micro-loans many people do not generate enough income to become self-sufficient. The statement of a senior manager at GB is insightful in this respect: “people take our loans and build up their

Poverty alleviation or poverty traps? 403

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small businesses. But then every two to three years a disaster occurs, wiping out all the small achievements they have made. Then they need to start all over again”. Although the frequency of hazardous events is a major factor in undermining the economic development through loss of assets and excessive borrowing it is not the sole problem. Diversion of loan amounts of Tk. 10,000 or more fully or partially into non-productive activities contributes significantly to the debt cycle into which many respondents in the field study have entered. Thus, “even though microfinance may meet many varied and immediate needs of many people, meeting those needs does not mean that microfinance is lifting them out of poverty” (Rahman, 2007b, p. 202). More interdisciplinary and longitudinal research is needed to unearth the interplay between natural hazards and microcredits and their wide-ranging effects they have on rural livelihoods. According to many respondents, income-generating activities, even if they entailed an element of credit, would be preferred to loans. Many felt that the training involved would give them the basic knowledge and, more importantly, the confidence needed to build up an enterprise that they are lacking at the moment. Concurrently, more institutional analysis is needed to reveal the perceptions of how MCOs view the impact of natural hazards on their organisation and clients and how they facture these into programme management. Nagarjan’s (1998) suggestion to introduce disaster contingency plans and staff training in disaster management into the operational development of MCOs could be instrumental in bringing about change. Although more research is needed on this topic it should not be forgotten that how an “instrument works depends on the setting in which it is applied, and the manner of applying it” (A. Rahman, 2007, p. xvii). The example of Bangladesh should be seen as a cautionary tale in this respect, particularly in light of the desire to “roll-out” microcredits as a panacea for poverty alleviation. Notes 1. US$1 ¼ Tk:68. 2. Although the headquarters (HQ) of GB, ASA and BRAC negated that no such close-out periods exists, this was challenged by both borrowers and fieldworkers alike. Please refer to Ahmad (2007) for more detailed information on the hierarchical relationship in Bengali NGOs. 3. In an interview with a senior manager of GB he acknowledged that problems exist between policies formulated at HQ level for the GB2 programme and its implementation on the ground. One of the reasons for the non-compliance is that although GB2 allows for more flexible lending for the clients it increases the fieldworkers’ already arduous workload even further (see also Ahmad (2000) on other MFIs. In the study area many fieldworkers continue using the Generalised System instead. 4. As in four above there appears to be a discrepancy between what is enshrined in policy and what actually occurs on the ground. According to the same senior GB manager field offices have the authority to declare stay of payments in emergency situations. In contrast field officers and branch managers in the study area were under the impression that they needed the approval from a regional manager. References Adato, M., Carter, M.R. and May, J. (2006), “Exploring poverty traps and social exclusion in South Africa using qualitative and quantitative data”, Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 42 No. 2, pp. 226-47.

Ahmad, M.M. (2000), Donors, NGOs, the State and their Clients in Bangladesh, Maniruddin Ahmed and Lutfun Nahar, Dhaka. Ahmad, Q.K. (Ed.) (2007), Socio-Economic and Indebtedness-related Impact of Micro-credit in Bangladesh, UPL, Dhaka. AIDMI (2005), “Disaster risk mitigation: potential for micro-finance for tsunami recovery”, Southasiadisasters.net, Special Issue No. 7 (revised), Ahmedabad. AIDMI (2006), “Community risk transfer through microinsurance: an opportunity for South Asia?”, Southasiadisasters.net, No. 13, Ahmedabad. Aliage, I. and Moseley, P. (2007), “Microcredits under crisis conditions”, in Dichter, T. and Harper, M. (Eds), What’s Wrong with Microfinance?, Practical Action Publishing, Rugby, pp. 121-35. Allen, H. (2007), “Finance begins with savings, not loans”, in Dichter, T. and Harper, M. (Eds), What’s Wrong with Microfinance?, Practical Action Publishing, Rugby, pp. 49-60. Barrientos, A. (2007), “Does vulnerability create poverty traps?”, CPRC Working Paper, No. 76, IDS, Brighton. Bateman, M. (2007), “De-industrialization and social disintegration in Bosnia”, in Dichter, T. and Harper, M. (Eds), What’s Wrong with Microfinance?, Practical Action Publishing, Rugby, pp. 207-23. BBS (2004), Report of the Poverty Monitoring Survey 2004, BBS, Dhaka. Blaikie, P. and Brookfield, H. (1987), Land Degradation and Society, Methuen, London. Blaikie, P., Cannon, T., Davis, I. and Wisner, B. (1994), At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability and Disaster, Routledge, London. Brammer, H. (1990), “Floods in Bangladesh I: geographical background to the 1987 and 1988 floods”, The Geographical Journal, Vol. 156 No. 1, pp. 12-22. Brouwer, R., Akter, S., Brander, L. and Haque, E. (2007), “Socioeconomic vulnerability and adaptation to environmental risk: a case study of climate change and flooding in Bangladesh”, Risk Analysis, Vol. 27 No. 2, pp. 313-26. Brown, W. and Nagarajan, G. (2000), Bangladeshi Experience in Adapting Financial Services to Cope with Floods: Implications for the Microfinance Industry, Development Alternatives Inc., Bethesda, MD. Cardona, O. (2003), “The need for rethinking the concept of vulnerability from a holistic perspective: a necessary review and criticism for effective risk management”, in Bankoff, G., Frerks, G. and Hillhorst, D. (Eds), Mapping Vulnerability: Disasters, Development and People, Earthscan, London, pp. 37-51. Carlin, J. (2006), “What sort of man makes millions from the poorest women in the world. . . and wins the Nobel Peace Prize for it?”, The Observer, November 5. Carter, M.R. and Barrett, C.B. (2006), “The economics of poverty traps and persistent poverty”, Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 42 No. 2, pp. 178-99. Carter, M.R., Little, P.D., Mogues, T. and Negatu, W. (2007), “Poverty traps and natural disasters in Ethiopia and Honduras”, World Development, Vol. 35 No. 5, pp. 835-56. CGAP (2005), “Microcredit: one of many intervention strategies”, paper presented at CGAP Direct PowerPoint, Donor Information Resource Centre, available at: www.cgap.org/ direct/docs/presentations/MicrocreditInter.ppt Chakrabarti, P.G.D. and Bhatt, M.R. (2006), Microfinance and Disaster Risk Reduction, NIDM, New Delhi. Chowdhury, A.M.R. and Alam, M.A. (1997), “BRAC’s poverty alleviation programme: what it is and what it achieved”, in Wood, G.D. and Sharif, I.A. (Eds), Who Needs Credit? Poverty and Finance in Bangladesh, UPL, Dhaka, pp. 171-94.

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Chowdhury, M.J.A., Ghosh, D. and Wright, R.E. (2005), “The impact of micro-credit on poverty: evidence from Bangladesh”, Progress in Development Studies, Vol. 5 No. 4, pp. 298-309. Cutter, S.L. (1993), Living with Risk, Edward Arnold, London. Cutter, S.L. (1996), “Vulnerability to environmental hazards”, Progress in Human Geography, Vol. 20 No. 4, pp. 529-39. Cutter, S.L., Mitchell, J.T. and Scott, M.S. (2000), “Revealing the vulnerability of people and places: a case study of Georgetown County, South Carolina”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 90 No. 4, pp. 713-37. Dercon, S. (2002), “Income risk, coping strategies and safety nets”, Discussion paper No. 2002/22, UNU/Wider, Helsinki. Dercon, S. (2004), “Growth and shocks: evidence from rural Ethiopia”, Journal of Development Economics, Vol. 74, pp. 309-29. Develtere, P. and Huybrechts, A. (2005), “The impact of microcredit on the poor in Bangladesh”, Alternatives, Vol. 30, pp. 168-89. Devereux, S. (2001), “Livelihood insecurity and social protection: a re-emerging issue in rural development”, Development Policy Review, Vol. 19 No. 4, pp. 507-19. Dichter, T. (2007), “Can microcredit make an already slippery slope more slippery?”, in Dichter, T. and Harper, M. (Eds), What’s Wrong with Microfinance?, Practical Action Publishing, Rugby, pp. 9-17. Dichter, T. and Harper, M. (Eds) (2007), What’s Wrong with Microfinance?, Practical Action Publishing, Rugby. Dorosh, P., delNinno, C. and Shahabuddin, Q. (2004), The 1998 Flood and beyond: Towards Comprehensive Food Security in Bangladesh, UPL and IFPRI, Dhaka. (The) Economist (2005a), “From charity to business”, The Economist, Vol. 377 No. 8451, p. 8. (The) Economist (2005b), “The hidden wealth of the poor”, The Economist, Vol. 377 No. 8451, p. 11. EM-DAT[Online] (n.d.), OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database, Universite´ Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, available at www.em-dat.net Few, R. (2003), “Flooding, vulnerability and coping strategies: local responses to a global threat”, Progress in Development Studies, Vol. 3 No. 1, pp. 43-58. Foster, A. (2004), “Altruism, household coresidence and women’s health investments in rural Bangladesh”, mimeograph. Fussel, H.M. (2005), “Vulnerability to climate change research: a comprehensive conceptual framework”, Breslauer Symposium Paper No. 6, Berkeley, CA., available at: http:// repositories.cdlib.org/ucias/breslauer/6/ Fussel, H.M. (2007), “Vulnerability: a generally applicable conceptual framework for climate change research”, Global Environmental Change, Vol. 17, pp. 155-67. Guha-Sapir, D., Hargitt, D. and Hoyois, P. (2004), Thirty Years of Natural Disasters 1974-2003: The Numbers, Presses Universitaires de Louvain, Louvain. Haque, C.E. (1997), Hazards in a Fickle Environment: Bangladesh, Kluwer Academic Press, Dordrecht. Harper, M. (2007a), “What’s wrong with groups?”, in Dichter, T. and Harper, M. (Eds), What’s Wrong with Microfinance?, Practical Action Publishing, Rugby, pp. 35-48. Harper, M. (2007b), “Microfinance and farmers: do they fit?”, in Dichter, T. and Harper, M. (Eds), What’s Wrong with Microfinance?, Practical Action Publishing, Rugby, pp. 83-94. Hartmann, B. and Boyce, J.K. (1983), A Quiet Violence: View from a Bangladesh Village, UPL, Dhaka.

Hashemi, S.M. and Morshed, L. (1997), “Grameen Bank: a case study”, in Wood, G.D. and Sharif, I.A. (Eds), Who Needs Credit? Poverty and Finance in Bangladesh, UPL, Dhaka, pp. 217-27. Heijmanns, A. (2001), “Vulnerability: a matter of perception”, mimeograph, available at: www. benfieldhrc.org/disaster_studies/working_papers/workingpaper4.pdf Hewitt, K. (Ed.) (1983), Interpretations of Calamity, Longman, Harlow. Hewitt, K. (1997), Regions of Risk: A Geographical Introduction to Disasters, Longman, Harlow. Hoddinott, J. (2006), “Shocks and their consequences across and within households in rural Zimbabwe”, Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 42 No. 2, pp. 301-21. Hofer, T. and Messerli, B. (2006), Floods in Bangladesh. History, Dynamics and Rethinking the Role of the Himalayas, United Nations University, Tokyo. Hoffman, S.M. and Oliver-Smith, A. (Eds) (1999), Angry Earth: Disasters in Anthropological Perspective, Routledge, London. Hulme, D. (2007), “Is microdebt good for poor people? A note on the dark side of microfinance?”, in Dichter, T. and Harper, M. (Eds), What’s Wrong with Microfinance?, Practical Action Publishing, Rugby, pp. 19-22. Hulme, D. and Moseley, P. (1996), Finance against Poverty, Vol. 1, London. Hutton, D. and Haque, C.E. (2004), “Human vulnerability, dislocation and resettlement: adaptation processes of river-bank erosion-induced displacees in Bangladesh”, Disasters, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 41-62. IPCC (2001), Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, IPCC, Geneva. Janssen, M.A., Schoon, M.L., Ke, W. and Borner, K. (2006), “Scholarly networks on resilience, vulnerability and adaptation within the human dimensions of global environmental change”, Global Environmental Change, Vol. 16, pp. 2-13. Kasperson, J.X., Kasperson, R.E., Turner, B.L. II, Schiller, A.M.D. and Hsieh, W. (2005), “Vulnerability to global environmental change”, in Kasperson, J.X., Turner, B.L. II, Schiller, A.M.D. and Hsieh, W. (Eds), Social Contours of Risk. II: Risk Analysis Corporations and the Globalization of Risk, Earthscan, London, pp. 245-85. Khandker, S.R. (2001), “Does micro-credit really benefit the poor? Evidence from Bangladesh”, paper presented at Asia and Pacific Forum on Poverty: Reforming Policies and Institutions for Poverty Reduction, ADB, Manila, 5-9 February 2001. Khandker, S.R. (2003), “Micro-finance and poverty: evidence using panel data from Bangladesh”, Policy Research Working paper 2945, The World Bank Development Research Group, Washington DC. Lok-Dessallien, R. (1998), “Review of poverty concepts and indicators”, Poverty Elimination Programme, UNDP, available at: www.undp.org/poverty/publications/pov_red/ Moser, C. (1998), “The asset vulnerability framework: reassessing urban poverty reduction strategies”, World Development, Vol. 26 No. 1, pp. 1-19. Nagarajan, G. (1998), Microfinance in the Wake of Natural Disasters: Challenges and Opportunities, Development Alternatives International Inc./Microfinance Best Practices, Bethesda, MD. O’Brien, K.L. and Leichenko, R.M. (2000), “Double exposure: assessing the impacts of climate change within the context of economic globalization”, Global Environmental Change, Vol. 10, pp. 221-32. O’Brien, K.L., Leichenko, R.M., Kelkar, U., Venema, H., Aandahl, G., Tompkins, H., Javed, A., Bhadwal, S., Barg, S., Nygaard, L. and West, J. (2004), “Mapping vulnerability to multiple stressors: climate change and globalization in India”, Global Environmental Change, Vol. 14, pp. 303-13.

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Park, C. (2006), “Risk pooling between households and risk coping measures in developing countries: evidence from rural Bangladesh”, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 54 No. 2, pp. 423-57. Pearl, D. and Phillips, M.M. (2001), “Grameen Bank, which pioneered loans for the poor, has hit a repayment snag”, The Wall Street Journal, 27 November. Pearlman, S. (2006), “Too vulnerable for microfinance? Risk and vulnerability as determinants of microfinance selection”, mimeograph. Pitt, M.M. and Khandker, S.R. (1998), “Credit programmes for the poor and seasonality in rural Bangladesh”, The Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 39 No. 2, pp. 1-24. Prowse, M. (2003), “Towards a clearer understanding of vulnerability in relation to chronic poverty”, CPRC Working Paper No. 24. Chronic Poverty Research Centre, University of Manchester, Manchester. Rahman, A. (1999), “Micro-credit initiatives for equitable and sustainable development: who pays?”, World Development, Vol. 27 No. 1, pp. 67-82. Rahman, A. (2001), Women and Micro-credit in Rural Bangladesh: An Anthropological Study of Grameen Bank Lending, Westview Press, Oxford. Rahman, A. (2007), “Foreword”, in Ahmad, Q.K. (Ed.), Socio-economic and Indebtedness-related Impact of Micro-credit in Bangladesh, UPL, Dhaka. Rahman, S. (2007), “A practitioner’s view”, in Dichter, T. and Harper, M. (Eds), What’s Wrong with Microfinance?, Practical Action Publishing, Rugby, pp. 193-205. Rogaly, B. (1996), “Micro-finance evangelism, ‘destitute women’, and the hard selling of a new anti-poverty formula”, Development in Practice, Vol. 6 No. 2, pp. 100-12. Rutherford, S. (2002), “Money talks: conversations with poor households in Bangladesh and managing money”, Working Paper No. 45, Finance and Development Research Programme, University of Manchester, Manchester. Schmuck-Widman, H. (1996), Living with Floods: Survival Strategies of Char Dwellers in Bangladesh, FDCL, Berlin. Sen, A. (1982), Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Sen, A. (1999), Development as Freedom, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Shahabuddin, Q. and Zulfiqar, A. (2006), “Natural disasters, risks, vulnerability and persistence of poverty: an analysis of household level data”, PRCPB Working Paper No. 15, BIDS, Dhaka. Shoji, M. (2006), “Limitations of quasi-credit as mutual insurance: coping strategies for covariant shocks in Bangladesh”, COE Discussion Paper F-138, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, available at: www.e.u-tokyo.ac.jp/cemano/research/DP/documents/ coe-f-138.pdf Turner, B.L. II, Kasperson, R.E., Matson, P.A., McCarthy, J.J., Corell, R.W., Christensen, L., Eckley, N., Kasperson, J.X., Luers, A., Martello, M.L., Polsky, C., Pulsipher, A. and Schiller, A. (2003), “A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 100, pp. 8074-9. Varley, A. (Ed.) (1994), Disasters, Development and Environment, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester. Von Pischke, J.D. (1991), Finance at the Frontier: Debt Capacity and the Role of Credit in the Private Economy, World Bank Publications, Washington, DC. Watts, M.J. and Bohle, H.G. (1993), “The space of vulnerability: the causal structure of hunger and famine”, Progress in Human Geography, Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 43-67.

Wijkman, A. and Timberlake, L. (1984), Natural Disasters: Acts of God or Acts of Man?, Earthscan, London. Wilson, K. (2007), “The moneylender’s dilemma”, in Dichter, T. and Harper, M. (Eds), What’s Wrong with Microfinance?, Practical Action Publishing, Rugby, pp. 97-108. Wisner, B., Blaikie, P., Cannon, T. and Davis, I. (2004), At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability and Disasters, Routledge, London. Wood, G.D. and Sharif, I.A. (Eds) (1997), Who Needs Credit? Poverty and Finance in Bangladesh, UPL, Dhaka. Yunus, M. (2002), Grameen Bank II: Designed to Open New Possibilities, Grameen Bank, Dhaka. Yunus, M. and Jolis, A. (1998), Banker to the Poor: The Autobiography of Mohammad Yunus of the Grameen Bank, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Zaman, H. (1999), “Assessing the poverty and vulnerability impact of micro-credit in Bangladesh: a case study of BRAC”, Policy Research Working Paper Series No. 2145, World Bank, Washington DC, available at: http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/ wbkwbrwps/2145.htm Zaman, M.Q. (1991), “Social structure and process in Char land settlement in the Brahmaputra-Jamuna floodplain”, Man, New Series, Vol. 26 No. 4, pp. 673-90. Further reading Bankoff, G., Frerks, G. and Hillhorst, D. (Eds) (2004), Mapping Vulnerability: Disasters, Development and People, Earthscan, London. DelNinno, C., Dorosh, P.A., Smith, L.C. and Roy, D.K. (2001), “The 1998 floods in Bangladesh: disaster impacts, household coping strategies, and response”, Research Report 122, IFPRI, Washington DC. Fussel, H.M. and Klein, R.J.T. (2006), “Climate change vulnerability assessments: an evolution of conceptual thinking”, Climatic Change, Vol. 75 No. 3, pp. 301-29. Grameen (2007), personal communication with a field-worker. Morduch, J. (1995), “Income smoothing and consumption smoothing”, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 103-14. Morduch, J. (1998), “Does microfinance really help the poor? New evidence from flagship programs in Bangladesh“, Working Paper No. 198, Research Program in Development Studies, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ. Skoufias, E. (2003), “Economic crises and natural disasters: coping strategies and policy implications”, World Development, Vol. 31 No. 7, pp. 1087-102. Corresponding author Mareen Gehlich-Shillabeer can be contacted at: [email protected]

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Philippe Re´gnier Centre for Asian Studies, Graduate Institutes of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland, and

Bruno Neri, Stefania Scuteri and Stefano Miniati Fondazione Terre des Hommes-Italia, Milan, Italy Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the issue of post-disaster livelihood recovery through economic rehabilitation, with the illustration of post-tsunami promotion of microentrepreneurship activities generating employment and income among the affected populations. Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines two field case studies in Aceh (Indonesia) and Tamil Nadu (India), where a well-established European NGO carried out economic relief and microentrepreneurship rehabilitation in 2005-2007. Findings – Despite unlimited trust in rapid reconstruction capacity, post-tsunami livelihood recovery has been chaotic and uncoordinated. Contrary to humanitarian agencies in charge of emergency relief, only a few development agencies and NGOs were able to deliver a rapid rehabilitation of microeconomic activities existing locally before the disaster. Research limitations/implications – There are values but also obvious limits to comparing the micro-level experiences of a major European NGO in two different locations such as Aceh and Tamil Nadu, and to deducing macro- and meso-level lessons to be learned. Practical implications – There are difficulties in benchmarking the divison of labour but necessary coordination among development agencies and their humanitarian counterparts in the field of post-disaster sustainable economic rehabilitation. Originality/value – Post-disaster economic security and livelihood recovery are at the forefront of current international policy research in humanitarian and development cooperation circles. Documented case studies and lessons to be learned are still scarce for feeding possible best practices. Keywords Rehabilitation, Microeconomics, Business development Paper type General review

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The Indonesian field research was conducted by two Italian advanced students, Stefania Scuteri and Stefano Miniati, coached by Bruno Neri, Senior Supervising Officer in charge of Asian countries at Terre des Hommes-Italy headquarters in Milan, a major European NGO based in seven European countries including Italy. The field research work was conducted together with Aron Cristellotti, country representative of TdH-Italy in Blang Asan, Pidie district, Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam Province, Indonesia. In India, special thanks go to Dr Loredana Marchetti, Senior Supervising Officer of Terre des Hommes Switzerland/Geneva, to Ranjan Prasad, Coordinator, People’s Action for Development in Vembar, Thuticorin district, Tamil Nadu, who facilitated the field research conducted by the author of this article, and in Indonesia to Aron Cristellotti, country representative of TdH-Italy in Blang Asan, Pidie district, Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam Province.

Introduction: conceptual debate on typology of post-tsunami assistance Depending on how you look at it, you can say this has been the best-funded emergency in the world – or the most expensive humanitarian response in history (IFRC, 2005)

The high-profile coverage of the tsunami led to the largest response to a disaster in the history of humanitarian aid (Telford and Cosgrave, 2007). But the glare of the medias and public attention pressured donor agencies to spend rapidly and visibly, often neglecting search for pre-disaster local data and ex-post precise needs assessment. The complexity of a major disaster (Gilbert, 1995) and long-term recovery beyond immediate emergency relief has also been underestimated by a number of donors and NGOs. In its report released in July 2006, the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition (TEC) underlines the central importance of addressing the rapid shift in post-disaster management from emergency relief to development and livelihood recovery among the affected populations. Though rather obvious, such a shift has been underestimated within the first months following the tsunami, most humanitarian agencies being inexperienced to meet locally affected people’s long-term development needs. Further questions have been raised such as: (1) Should the content and quality of humanitarian assistance, short-term by nature, be up-graded to include linkages with longer-term development rehabilitation? (2) Could a well monitored division of labour and coordination be settled among humanitarian agencies and development cooperation institutions, both at the international level and in the country affected by a disaster? Beyond pure economics of survival, there is no international standard definition of livelihood recovery in a post-disaster context (Albala-Bertrand, 1993; Okuyama, 2003; Rasmussen, 2004). It does not take into account the degree of pre-disaster vulnerability among the affected populations, which may differ significantly between developed and developing countries, and even more within any single country of the second category (Kahn, 2005; Stro¨mberg, 2007). The issue is even more complex when a disaster takes place in a region also affected by a political and security crisis, like in Aceh. Yet, the terminology of livelihood recovery has been utilized in every post-tsunami document published by donors since 2005, up to a point that the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) decided in 2006 to appoint for the first time livelihood aid officers among its senior staff. The British development agency (DFID) provides a rather comprehensive definition of the concept of “livelihood”: A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (including both material and social resources) and activities required for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets both now and in the future, while not undermining the natural base.

The concept of livelihood covers a wide range of economic and social contents (DFID, 2005; UNDP, 2005), which have also to be contextualized, with enormous variations among pre- and post-disaster parameters from one situation to another. An emerging international consensus seems to recognize that:

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emergency relief does play a crucial role during the first weeks and months following a disaster; it can include in a broad sense the delivery of minimum safety, stability and confidence building beyond the material supply of survival equipment and tools; and the role of humanitarian agencies should stop there, and be substituted by reconstruction and development aid, supportive services and various types of international grants and domestic incentives to enable the affected populations to get back within shortest possible delays to their ex-ante economic and social activities.

The plea for a rapid and effective shift from emergency relief to development reconstruction has led a number of donors and NGOs to target in the context of the post-tsunami the rehabilitation of small economic activities. Such activities should aim to restore access to local production of basic commodities and petty services, to start again other types of pre-existing economic activities, in order to secure employment, income, and dignity for the majority of survivors (GTCA, 2005; ILO, 2005a; ODI, 2005; UNDP, 2006). The declared objective of self-reliance and sustainability of such microeconomic activities proceeds from the hard fact that continued injection of national and foreign aid is neither desirable per se, nor feasible. Furthermore, a number of well-funded post-tsunami hardware reconstruction projects tend to rely on external contractors, and therefore do not source for materials, components and parts locally. Logically, given the limits of their relief mandate, the vast majority of donors retreat within a time span of one to two years, because of their own policy and project financing constraints. In the meantime, other crises call them elsewhere. Furthermore, humanitarian agencies do not have a development mandate. Even if they had one, there is no systematic justification per se to transform every place affected by a disaster into a new development cooperation area (World Bank, 2005a). In the context of this international post-disaster debate, this article intends to address the necessary shift from emergency relief to development reconstruction, in the case of Aceh and Tamil Nadu. More specifically, it reviews the local conditions of recreating, with the support of local institutions and Italian and Swiss NGO partners, microeconomic activities to guarantee the recovery of coastal communities affected by the tsunami. Location of NGOs’ post-tsunami field intervention The human toll due to the tsunami has been massive, especially in the provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra. Within hours after Indonesia, the Eastern coasts of India and Sri Lanka suffered the most (McCulloch, 2005). Following the disaster, the Italian NGO Terre des Hommes selected the Pidie district, as one of the largest located on the Northeast coast of Sumatra. Pidie used to be a rather wealthy district in terms of fishing activities, aquaculture, farming and post-farming, husbandary, fruit production and horticulture. Human and economic destructions by the tsunami were very severe. The Swiss NGO Terre des Hommes-Geneva targeted the Vembar district, located in South Tamil Nadu along the Gulf of Mannar (GOM), between the cities of Rameswaram (facing Jafna, Sri Lanka) and Thuticorin. Compared to the Nagapatinam district further North, Vembar faced mainly material destructions, with much lower human casualties. However, it was

from a socio-economic viewpoint much more vulnerable than the Pidie district due to the hardship conditions of the local environment. Even though the 320 km of the coast are classified as national sea biosphere patrimony, due to its exceptional biodiversity and coral reef fauna, it belongs to the most semi-arid areas of Tamil Nadu, and has to face regular typhoons during the moonson. The salinity of soils, the scarcity of underground water, the low delivery of basic infrastructures explain the deep poverty of the area and its marginalization from major communication and economic flows. In addition to fishing, the only other activities enabling local inhabitants to survive are goat rearing, tapping of fibres and sweet juice from palm trees, charcoal, and production of salt. Formal institutions have largely failed to provide livelihood development to the region, whereas fishing and rural production of surpluses in kind and cash was noticeable in Northern Sumatra before the tsunami. After the initial huge relief effort, rebuilding the productive sector became the most important but difficult challenge. Fishery and also aquaculture (in the Indonesian case) were the most destructed sectors (Anzbalagan and Nirmala, 2005). Most of the local production used to be consumed locally or exported unprocessed to other domestic destinations and overseas (proximity of Aceh vis-a`-vis regional markets like Malaysia and Singapore). Microentrepreneurship landscape and post-tsunami recovery-enabling environment Liberal theories envisage small entrepreneurship as a rather free and spontaneous phenomenon based on individual or semi-collective/community grouping choice, in which neither the State nor any other external player should intervene. However, other theoreticians have demonstrated the interdependence between the small enterprise and its environment, which has always to be contextualized (Glancey and McQuaid, 2000). Since the 1990 s, the Committee of Donor Agencies for Small Enterprise Development, coordinated by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation, has put forward the concept of business enabling environment, which implies that some natural and/or institutional factors may handicap or prevent the birth and development of entrepreneurial dynamics. Yet, such concepts were developed under normal conditions, and not applied in the context of disasters. Therefore, theories regarding the facilitation of post-disaster business rehabilitation environment are simply lacking (ILO, 2005b). Among humanitarian or development agencies, practical experiences in post-crisis economic recovery have been limited and highly localized, and have not produced well-established conceptual knowledge as yet (World Bank, 2005b). In both the Indian and Indonesian locations, small entrepreneurship in the proper sense hardly existed beyond the village community production of basic food such as fish, shrimp, rice and fruits or husbandry, which were not even semi-processed and transformed locally, but sold through local traders and transporters, with the value added chain bringing high revenue outside the district. In this context, middlemen using mainly motorbikes or mini-trucks are active at each possible interconnection between demand and supply. Their close proximity to local households allow them to keep their position as intermediaries without any risk of competition from outsiders, as most local producers do not have a direct access both to suppliers and market channels. Beyond the pre-tsunami existence of household production activities, it has been difficult to identify local community networks with minimum solidarity level enabling post-disaster economic and social relief to be channelled rapidly and effectively. Quite

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surprisingly, the high or low presence of local government has not modified this picture, neither in Indonesia nor in India. In the case of Indonesia, a striking sociological feature was the absence or low level of cooperation among households. The lowest level of extra-family cooperation still is the village community and is mainly channelled through the Islamic religion. The mosque functions as a social catalyst and meeting place to conciliate various public interests. Terre des Hommes-Italy has met very few examples of common risk management and spontaneous solidarity in grassroot rehabilitation efforts. There are a few exceptions in some villages, where the fishing net is collectively managed by all fishermen. Elsewhere it is the property of a few asking other users for a fee. Another example of cooperation is the breeding of public ponds: local breeders work for themselves, but because they make a profitable use of a public asset, a share of their revenue has to be given to the local community. The low level of rural civil society community organization has not been much counterbalanced by high aid commitment of local public administration. Due to thirty years of separatist conflict and the recent autonomy of the Aceh Province, governmental presence is widespread, but not trusted. Its main objective is more to control than to support the local population, even after the tsunami. Its concern to rehabilitate the local economy has been rather nil, leaving the task to the international NGO and UN agencies (BRR and UN, 2005a). Clashes have been frequent with the local administration taking briberies. Anger has also developed as none of the new economic decentralization legislation allocating 70 per cent of Aceh oil and gas revenues to the province have reached the low-end segments of society. In practice, the Agency for Rehabilitation and Reconstruction did not facilitate but controlled foreign aid, and even became a kind of competitor vis-a`-vis NGOs to obtain foreign funding (BRR and UN, 2005b). In the case of India, the level of local solidarity seemed much higher at least on the surface, perharps due to widespread poverty compared to the Indonesian district of Pidie. For many years, almost every fishing village has had a Fishermen Co-operative Society to implement government welfare programmes and subsidy schemes. However, very limited benefits came through, marketing the fish being left entirely to auctioneers and middlemen. The Department of Fisheries, Government of Tamil Nadu, has played a role in dealing with fishing regulations, conflict resolutions and welfare schemes, but it has failed to understand the erosion of traditional fishing conditions and the impact of the mechanization of the fishing industry (Arockiasamy, 2005). Owing to poor access to financial assistance, most fishermen have remained in debt vis-a`-vis traders and moneylenders. The overall minimum presence of public and non-governmental institutions probably explains why the Gulf of Mannar remained out of reach by post-tsunami assistance. Compared to the Gulf of Bengal up to Pondichery and Chennai, where hundreds of national and foreign NGOs have operated in a rather uncoordinated way (Concord/Voice, 2005; Fritz Institute, 2005), almost none contemplated the idea of operating further South in the district of Vembar, which does not have even a single guest house to accommodate development aid staff. Post-tsunami assistance has therefore been extremely scarce apart from moral and social support through Christian church networks, which are predominant in the area compared to the Hindu and Muslim ones. Apart from the NGO People’s Action for Development located in the district city of Vembar, there is little trace of any other NGO. Local government assistance has been close to nil, except a brand new project of

wholly cemented flat roof houses built by a large Northern Indian contractor in the middle of nowhere. Sustainable livelihood recovery assistance through microeconomic initiatives Given the distinct household and microentrepreneurship landscapes as described above, the livelihood recovery strategies followed by Terre des Hommes-Italy (TdH-I) and by Terre des Hommes-Switzerland/Geneva (TdH-CH) have differed quite substantially. TdH-I has followed a rather classical assistance path, whereas TdH-CH was able to venture together with an Indian NGO, which had been locally active on the development front years before the tsunami. In both cases, foreign NGO cooperation has gone beyond post-disaster economic relief through replacement of infrastructure and equipment. It has also included the delivery of technical and financial means to relaunch those microeconomic activities prevailing before the tsunami, with a long-term objective of sustainable recovery of local livelihood. Terre des Hommes-Italy (TdH-I) worked first in East Aceh together with the UNDP Cash for Work Programme. Then it implemented several projects of its own (housing, health care, school reconstruction, economic livelihood). More recently, TdH-I has been conducting a livelihood recovery project in the Pidie district together with UNDP, which focuses on the rehabilitation of aquaculture and on some other income generating activities. The concept is not to promote new activities but to rehabilitate prior-tsunami microeconomic ones, with a gender concern. A particular target has centred on fishing equipment and production of nutcrackers. The Jangka Buya sub-district was chosen because of heavy damages. The goal was to involve fishermen in order to rebuild self-reliance as soon as possible. Two village groups were trained in the relaunching of their fishing and post-fishing activities, and were exposed to basic know how in accounting, leasing and sales. The revitalized fishing group in Pasie Aron has been registered as a cooperative in February 2007, providing access to low price fishing equipment and low interest microcredit. Another type of cooperative was successfully tested with a group of women producing nutcrackers. The group has been able to buy additional tools to become fully operational and to involve gradually more members since early 2007. In the Gulf of Mannar, a local Indian NGO called PAD (People Action for Development) has adopted an integrated and sustainable development approach, addressing the fishing villages’ economic rehabilitation, social development, and environmental needs. Based on a number of small projects conducted for 4-5 years preceding the tsunami, PAD, which is not a humanitarian NGO, had immediate access and was able to assess in each village the reconstruction situation. These reasons led TdH-CH to support PAD’s assistance to fishing, post-fishing and complementary activities through the reinforcement of existing community self-help groups (SHGs) and the creation of new SHGs. New communitarian boats, motors, different types of nets, and hooks have been supplied to encourage fishermen to resume going at sea within shortest delays possible. Quantity, quality and diversity of these inputs have enabled fishermen to access better equipment than prior to the tsunami. Within one year, they have been able to improve their fish catches. Some SHGs have even made a spontaneous decision to buy back the new communitarian boats, initially provided for free, in order to constitute gradually a savings fund, which is used for maintenance and

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repair purpose, or for emergencies (accidents or death at sea). Social solidarity in the form of SHGs is among the main factors explaining why post-fishing revenues have substantially increased (þ 30 to 40 per cent compared to pre-tsunami levels). These SHGs have taken responsibility for maintenance and repair work of fishing equipment, but also for the proper distribution and management of insulated ice boxes and freezers collectively owned. Refrigeration, as an absolute necessity in a tropical climate, has enabled better fish marketing and transportation. With the support of a small microcredit revolving fund financed by TdH-CH and channelled through PAD social workers, the SHGs have started microentrepreneurial initiatives in the following areas: . post-fishing marketing and transportation to end markets; . bulk purchase of rice for resale in small quantities; . production of fish pickles, soap and other small items; and . goat rearing. Thanks to the microfinance scheme, some SHGs have been able to cut down and even pay off fishermen’s debt dependency vis-a`-vis intermediaries buying and transporting the fish directly from the beach, but also lending money for the acquisition of nets and other equipment. Some SHGs are now able to organize small fish auctions. Out of total sales, 75 per cent of revenues go to fishermen, 5 per cent to SHG-appointed traders, 15 per cent to microcredit repayment, and 5 per cent to a SHG saving account (to be used only in case of emergency, and since 2007 as a collective microinsurance). Access to microfinance has enabled some SHGs not only to get away from abusive intermediaries, but also to recruit some of them as SHG’s regular employees in charge of fish auction, marketing and transport. SHG social dynamics have also resulted in awareness creation, empowerment and embryonic advocacy among local village communities. In addition, PAD has initiated Village Development Committees in charge of channelling relief assistance. Such committees are composed of panchayat representatives, traditional leaders, religious figures, schoolteachers, community and SHG representatives. This has come up to the surprise of South Indian politicians, who have traditionally looked down at this very poor region. Post-tsunami challenges of new microentrepreneurship creation and development Theory and practice in entrepreneurship studies show that the creation and sustainable development of new microeconomic and small business activities, even more in vulnerable developing countries, is the result of a complex chemistry of enabling factors, which can be hardly delivered neither from local government alone nor from foreign donor agencies (Harper, 1984; Meredith et al., 1982; Prahalad, 2006). Such chemistry seems even more complicated to forge under unstable or abnormal circumstances, especially after a disaster or any other type of violent crisis, despite the obvious need to recreate employment and income generating activities on the ground as rapidly as possible (ILO, 2005a). It seems feasible to relaunch pre-disaster existing economic activities through capitalization of know-hows among the affected population, whereas ex-nihilo creation of new business may be perceived as out of reach even in a rather entrepreneurial culture like India in recent years. An additional difficulty may also lie in the informality, petty scale and vulnerability of the microeconomic activities concerned, and the difficulty to design technical and financial

supportive tools adapted to such activities, and to find out appropriate modes of delivery (UNDP, 2004; Prahalad, 2006; Flynn, 2007). In Aceh, the province has been gradually moving from economic recovery in 2005-2006 to renewed development and growth since 2006-2007. However, because of relative isolation during the 30 years of armed political conflict preceding the tsunami, and direct absorption of oil and gas revenues by the Indonesian central government, very few small business development services have been operating and even less after the disaster. For instance, a wide range of national and foreign microfinance organizations have opened a local office, but most of them have performed little in terms of territorial coverage and effective lending to those in need. The cooperative system has not performed much either due to its infancy. The most frequent attitude among communities affected by the tsunami was to wait for the help of some institution. Post-tsunami introduction by outsiders (such as TdH-I) of self-help groups and cooperative principles were difficult and time consuming, even though this route has proven to be easier and more practical than formalizing a small business. It has not been uncommon to witness the creation of cooperatives only for the sake of accessing funds from donors. Only Islamic microfinance institutions, making use of religious donations and taxes, have worked not only on commercial basis but also on social terms, thus developing a close relationship with local communities (Asian Development Bank and Government of Japan, 2005; Imam Budi Utama, 2006). However, microcredit has not been the appropriate answer to many business development needs. For example, post-tsunami transportation facilities were a major concern. Most fishermen were used to sell their products directly from the boats, the beaches or in the immediate vicinity without direct access to markets. After the disaster, truck and other transportation hiring prices have considerably increased, and a foreign NGO like TdH-I felt the need to provide, together with UNDP, pick-up vans. Another but unsolved problem was the ice shortage affecting fishermen and middlemen. Only one operating ice factory was left in the Pidie district after the tsunami, and it became a monopolist producer with severe implications on supply and level of prices. Some households resumed their own small ice production, but just for themselves. The need has remained very high for at least two more ice factories in order to cover total demand. TdH-I was able to come up with only a small segment of the total solution: the introduction of ice boxes and small freezers managed by local communities. In South Tamil Nadu, and beyond its effective contributions to economic recovery, PAD has also faced the difficult task to impulse either a diversification of local traditional activities, or new types of microactivities in sectors where there was no previous experience and know how locally. First, PAD started to explore possible diversification and value added generation in the fishery sector. Two production units were envisaged in fish drying, and in processing fish and crab pickles. Pickles are in high demand in India, but proper market research has not been carried out due to PAD’s lack of marketing skills, and due to prohibitive costs of professional consultants. Dry fish is for human consumption, but it is also increasingly used in shrimp farms and for feeding other livestocks. However, the relative high cost technology for a solar drying fish unit would hardly meet the availability of regular fish supply, and downstream the possible sale price acceptable by the market. Consultations with the South India Federation of Fishing Societies have also highlighted other negative aspects (SIFFS, 2006). There is still scope if SIFFS was able to organize a wide territorial collection of fish to be dried and processed in a few

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large-scale aggregation, production and marketing units. Pickles are facing rising demand in India and overseas, but some brands, meaning established competitors, are already quite present. Price elasticity of demand is also not very high. A second sector was also envisaged, namely mangrove cultivation and aquaculture (an activity better known in Sumatra than in South Tamil Nadu). There are already a few crab and shrimp small fatting experimental units along the coast of Mannar, which use environmentally friendly methods. One of the three core mandates of PAD is to address the protection of the biodiversity and the sustainable development of the Gulf. With German ecological assistance, PAD has started a mangrove plantation and cultivation program. There is reasonable prospect for small-scale aquaculture, which could be developed as household side activity. Marketing and distribution could be handled through self-help groups, PAD and external networks. This strategy could create new opportunities to raise good quality crab, fish and prawn species, and sell them to large seafood firms. As the district will be connected soon to the Indian North-South highway, new opportunities may also emerge for cold storage and refrigeration transport by road. Thirdly, due to its environmental preoccupations, PAD has also started to launch, completely from scratch, a new sector in software education. Among its social and educative activities, PAD has established in Vembar a small computer centre with about 20 computers, software and internet connection. The facility has been used so far as a computer education centre for the rural youth. The computer centre could be further valorized and become eventually self-financed, if not profitable. Several concepts have emerged, and are currently being further studied: . The computer centre could be up-graded into a small meteorological information unit serving the fishing communities. This would contribute to better fishing and security conditions. Insurance companies could develop their social responsibility and sponsor some segments of this project. . The computer centre could also serve as a base for ocean biodiversity data collection, ocean engineering, scientific and students/junior staff training activities together with appropriate public and private partners. The computer centre could also become a unit for the development of a coastal and offshore surveillance system, if the government is serious about its protected status as a national ocean reserve. . The computer centre could also become a reference in terms of disaster preparedness and mitigation. It could store detailed risk management maps and disaster response plans in a region where cyclones and typhoons are frequent. Post-disaster economic rehabilitation strategies: some suggestions from the tsunami experience The two post-tsunami cases of Aceh (Indonesia) and Tamil Nadu (India) reported in this article illustrate the importance and challenges for linking post-disaster recovery strategies with long-term sustainable development objectives, which have to be appropriate and relevant to local social and economic needs. This viewpoint questions the chaotic and uncoordinated mode of providing recovery aid in various locations affected by the tsunami (Concord/Voice, 2005; Fritz Institute, 2005). It may also lead to a revisiting of the whole approach related to the conception, organization and delivery of post-disaster relief on the ground (Houghton, 2005). This section reviews a number

of crucial issues and tries to pave the way for new post-disaster management initiatives beyond pure rhetoric criticisms. The problem of post-tsunami macro-level aid overconcentration Both Aceh and Tamil Nadu have been inundated with aid and money. However, the contrast between the two field case studies presented in this article was deliberate: TdH-CH preferred to target the very poor coastal region of Mannar, which was almost forgotten, instead of joining hundreds of domestic and foreign NGOs in their aid overconcentration in the Nagappatinam district on the road to Pondichery. As a matter of fact, both in Aceh and Tamil Nadu, too many actors have been involved in post-tsunami projects: central/provincial governments and foreign donor agencies, United Nations and World Bank/Asian Development Bank, domestic and foreign NGOs. For instance, about US$ 113 million have been allocated to the Emergency Response and Transitional Recover Programme coordinated by UNDP in Aceh: by the end of 2006, only 71 per cent had been disbursed (BRR, 2006; UNORC and BRR, 2007). The overconcentration of aid was not only of a financial nature. In terms of priorities of aid allocation, most of the relief addressed two sectors: shelter and housing reconstruction, fishing boats and related equipment. Aid oversupply has been particularly noticeable in macro-level hardware reconstruction, with a difficult shift to micro-level livelihood recovery intervention. In Aceh, large infrastructure reconstruction projects were implemented by big foreign and national agencies. It left NGOs the chance to focus on the micro-level, including reconstruction of local infrastructure for small business to restart. In the case of aquaculture rehabilitation for instance, TdH-I and UNDP have facilitated the reconstruction of ponds through cash for work. Then, the focus was put on small business software to reinitiate production and marketing of fish, crabs and prawns. The question was raised whether PAD and TdH-CH were perhaps lagging behind big donors elsewhere in Tamil Nadu in the capacity of boosting new micro- and small-scale economic activities. However, the situation was not more advanced in the Gulf of Bengal despite high concentration of aid and much better local socio-economic conditions compared to the marginalized Gulf of Mannar. For example, a large institution like Caritas, which was able to raise around US$ 100 million for tsunami relief, had not yet completed by mid-2006 the construction and delivery of about 12,000 new houses (Caritas India, 2005). It was only by the end of 2007 that Caritas started to envisage, but only at a preliminary conceptual level, a microentrepreunership promotion program. Large-scale reconstruction versus grass-root recovery Field observation in India and Indonesia has shown that a clear distinction should be made between two types of post-disaster interventions: (1) large-scale reconstruction of basic infrastructure and housing, having potential grassroot-level multiplier and spillover effects upstream and downstream on the local economy, but hardly addressed by most of the reconstruction projects; and (2) microeconomic rehabilitation in well identified pre-disaster existing sectors, which have been locally addressed by only a very limited number of development aid projects.

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Despite the magnitude of the tsunami, the rehabilitation of the local economy has not been identified as one of the reconstruction top priorities. Humanitarian agencies and most development aid institutions have none or few competencies in microentrepreneurship (Lloyd-Jones, 2006). Such grassroot livelihood restoration projects have also much less financial volume and therefore less political attractiveness and public visibility than large-scale intervention dealing with reconstruction of infrastructure, civil engineering logistics, housing and water sanitation, . . .Such neglect of grassroot economic recovery needs has also resulted from the absence of pre-disaster and micro-level mapping of existing economic activities in every single location (BPS of Nangroe Aceh Darussalam and BAPPEDA, 2005; IFRC, 2005, 2006; UNORC and BRR, 2007). Such information has never been requested by policy makers in charge of national disaster management planning, even in emerging countries such as India or Indonesia facing major natural hazards every year. In addition, the manner in which large-scale reconstruction projects have been conceived and implemented since the early months following the tsunami has hardly contributed to the boosting of the local economy. On the contrary, most projects of that type have relied on external and large contractors, sitting in far distant major industrial and urban centres (like Chennai, Delhi and Mumbay in the Indian case) or even abroad. No wonder why such well-funded projects have resulted in various malpractices, including client-patron relationships and corruption (Fritz Institute, 2005; World Bank, 2005a). Grassroot economic rehabilitation is also extremely difficult to design and package, as it must be customized and tailored to the specific conditions of every single location and community. Post-tsunami field observation has indicated that: . livelihood rehabilitation cannot be envisaged only in pure economic terms. Post-disaster microeconomic revitalization cannot be separated from community and social parameters able to facilitate the process; . few foreign development agencies can pretend to master such local economic and social parameters, except if they were present on the ground years before the tsunami, and cooperating with local NGOs doing effective work at the grassroot-level; and . post-tsunami microeconomic rehabilitation has succeeded where grass root-level community participation and ownership have been encouraged from the very beginning of intervention (Swayam Shikshan Prayog, 2007). In the Indonesian case, a participatory approach has been adopted to involve local district and village leaders in the identification and implementation of the projects. Some cooperation has also been possible with some local NGOs in order to understand the local social and institutional context. This has enabled TdH-I to work faster and more effectively. Sometimes, local collaborations led to some abuse of foreign aid: local leaders were called in to choose the beneficiaries in order to avoid community clashes, and there were conflicts of interest involving bribery and cooptation. The enormous funds initially committed for post-tsunami relief have temptated more than one. TdH-I has been one of many foreign NGOs to realize that poor local governance could mean waiting for the next donor to come. In the Indian case, the livelihood positive impact of first economic aid delivery could not have succeeded without a strong participatory approach. The role of local communities and self-help groups, coached by a local NGO like PAD years before the tsunami, has paid

back (FAO, 2007). The empowerment of village communities has proven to be effective not only to channel microcredit but also to engineer some micromarketing and microfinancial initiatives of their own conducive to more sustainable development of local economic transactions. However, livelihood recovery impulsions made possible by local NGOs and grass-root participation do not necessarily mean that local government and administrative institutions should be always considered as ineffective in the delivery of post-disaster assistance. Both local and foreign NGOs should refrain to attribute exclusively to their own merits what local institutions are able to perform by themselves. In the case of India, local government played a significant role in the post-earthquake reconstruction in Gujarat (2001-2004), whereas it has been much less present and effective in Tamil Nadu after the tsunami (Duyne-Barenstein, 2006; EDII, 2005). Grants in cash versus microfinance and microinsurance for economic rehabilitation Post-tsunami field observations indicate that cash for work has been rather intensively used, especially in Indonesia, to facilitate the reconstruction of light infrastructure, some housing, fishing boats, ponds for aquaculture, . . . (Adams, 2006; Kumar Anand and Newport, 2005). Microfinance has not been widely used, first because it needs a number of prerequisites to be operational, secondly because it remains to be seen how it can function overnight just after a disaster (World Bank, 2002 2005b). Microcredit is primarily a tool to boost microsavings at the household and community levels, and then try to cushion through microloans the high variations of income among vulnerable segments of the population, especially to meet sudden and unexpected expenses. Only 15 per cent of total microcredit flows worldwide support microproduction activities, and it is not yet fully established that microfinance should be used as a major financial tool to promote small entrepreneurship, which often requires more capital per small business development project than microfinance can ever supply (Asian Development Bank, 1997). The Indonesian case study clearly shows that TdH-I did not initiate post-tsunami microfinance projects for the simple reason that the level of community self-organization was too weak to do so (ILO, 2005b, 2006; Doocy et al., 2006). Contrary to India, there was no pre-existing tradition of self-help group networks to finance microeconomic activities, and it took more than two years to start initiating here and there small cooperatives. The Indian case study does not either completely refute or demonstrate the utility of microfinance in post-disaster situations. Microcredit has worked in locations where the degree of prior participatory self-organization was rather high. At best, it is one financial tool among others, which can coexist with other financial instruments and practices, including money lending, as long as access to formal banking institutions cannot be delivered (Kull, 2005; Swayam Shikshan Prayog, 2007). The Indian case study does neither completely refute nor demonstrate the utility of microfinance in post-disaster situations, which can be envisaged depending on local participatory self-organization. As shown in the case of the Gujarat earthquake, local government can play a role in providing incentives in cash or kind directly to the victims (Duyne-Barenstein, 2006). Cash for work did play an important role in the case of post-tsunami Aceh. The possible role of pre-disaster microinsurance has been mentioned mainly in the Indian case. Here again, the degree of fishing community self-organization together

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with PAD and TdH-CH has inclined to capitalize on pre-tsunami and post-tsunami accumulation of microfinance experiences. In the course of 2007, the local NGO PAD was able to act in the name of several fishing village self-groups and to negotiate a collective microinsurance scheme with an insurance company established in the city of Madurai. This microinsurance scheme can provide coverage if some fishermen are lost at sea, especially in case of typhoons. The premium is sufficient to help a widow to buy some cattle or envisage another type of microeconomic activity to replace the loss of fishing revenue. Beyond this example, one should remain cautious vis-a`-vis the growing emphasis by the international community on microinsurance (AIDMI, 2005; Kunreuther, 1996). Microinsurance as a tool to reduce a number of business and family life risks is one thing, whereas microinsurance to reduce the immediate impacts of major disasters is a different matter. Of course, pooling risks in exchange for a premium can provide some protection against losses. However, following a disaster, the most affected people usually receive various types of support from the many others who are not, or are less, affected. Instead of microinsurance, which is inaccessible on an individual basis, most of the poor affected by a natural hazard tend to rely either on family microsavings, or on mortgaging their land and assets, or on emergency loans from moneylenders and traders. Without minimum household savings or family support, disasters may lead to a “cycle of poverty”, as victims may contract high-interest informal loans or default on existing ones, sell assets and livestock, or engage in low-risk, low-yield farming to lessen their exposure to extreme events (Kumar Anand and Newport, 2005; Mechler et al., 2006). The alternatives to microinsurance in the developing world include collective savings and microfinance, informal insurance or arrangements that involve reciprocal exchange such as kinship ties, community self-help, or transfer of remittances. Exploring the continuum or contiguum between humanitarian relief and development aid Emergency aid is in principle related to any form of sudden crisis. It is short-term by nature and should address the most visible needs as rapidly as possible. There is no apparent reason why humanitarian agencies should link emergency health, food and shelter security to long-term reconstruction. Livelihood recovery and economic rehabilitation are supposed to be handled by national and foreign development agencies, which have different mandates and skills (Lloyd-Jones, 2006). However, this division of labour between humanitarian and development actors can be challenged especially in poor countries, which are structurally vulnerable to various types of natural hazards and pandemics (IFRC, 2005; World Bank, 2005a). The scale of the tsunami and the magnitude of its immediate mediatization were such that the usual intervention of humanitarian agencies overlapped with the uncoordinated actions of a myriad foreign development and social NGOs, which improvised their respective emergency agenda. A second major source of confusion resulted from the overfinanciarization of relief operations, without any sense of priorities and proper planning (IFTDH, 2005; TDHG, 2005). As a result, the quantity of aid was in excess supply, but did not necessarily include sustainable livelihood recovery, that is how the affected populations could revitalize their own economic and social activities to be back on their feet. At first glance, it seems that there was a problem of continuum between humanitarian and development agencies, meaning that

there was a lack of planning and coordination on how to shift from humanitarian to development action (Houghton, 2005; IFRC, 2006). In retrospective however, the problem was less the absence of a continuum than the lack of any anticipated continuum between humanitarian and development tasks. Post-tsunami field experience has shown that humanitarian and development actions should have been conceived together from the very beginning in order to design humanitarian action as compatible with local development recovery. In both Aceh and Tamil Nadu, it can be even argued that long-term consideration of livelihood recovery from the very start could have saved later on a huge waste of emergency aid, and could have also prevented the risk of aid addiction. Economic rehabilitation could have been imbricated into the first phases of emergency relief. Furthermore, self-help could have been promoted among the beneficiaries, for instance in the repair or reconstruction of their own housing with local inputs and materials in order to boost employment and income generation at the grassroot level (Duyne-Barenstein, 2006). In Aceh, the Consultative Group of Indonesia has been a coordinating platform between the Indonesian development planning agency, the World Bank and numerous other governmental and NGO partners, which have produced the main Damage and Loss Assessment for Aceh and Nias. On this basis, rather fair coordination of emergency relief has been carried out by UNDP, whereas the shift to livelihood recovery was more difficult (BRR, 2005a; UNDP, 2006). The most successful emergency projects were based on cash for work by and for locals. However, some other emergency aid projects, like temporary shelters, led by humanitarian agencies or specialized NGOs have slowed down housing rehabilitation, simply because they had no competence at all in such endeavour. Their exclusive focus on real or supposed basic needs did not have always positive impacts on economic rehabilitation attempts carried by others. In Tamil Nadu, Indian and foreign humanitarian agencies have been rather absent in remote areas like the Gulf of Mannar. Development NGOs, already present in the field prior to the disaster, have transformed themselves into emergency relief organizations within a few months. Pure improvisation was adopted more than once, with little supervision by the Indian authorities. Yet, there has been some coordination effort through the NGO Coordination and Resource Centre (NCRC), mainly funded by the Swiss development agency. The central question is why the NCRC, which was established after the Gujarat post-earthquake experience, has not been more effective in the post-tsunami situation (Duyne-Barenstein, 2006)? In 2001, the Gujarati Government provided reconstruction assistance in cash directly to the affected households. Public-private partnerships were put in place to channel NGOs’ participation, and rehabilitation was either supported by the State, or equally shared with NGOs. In practice, public agencies took the lead together with local owners of physical and business capital lost in the earthquake, whereas NGOs covered less than 30 per cent of reconstruction (EDII, 2005). Post-tsunami economic rehabilitation versus development vulnerability Field observation in Indonesia and India can feed a debate whether and how far post-disaster economic rehabilitation can be associated with the very concept of development. As shown in the case studies, both domestic and foreign development

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agencies define as one of their priorities the restoration of pre-disaster conditions of living mainly in the pre-existing traditional economic sectors. This assertion raises two types of problems. First, neither of the coasts of Northern Sumatra and Tamil Nadu were particularly developed before the tsunami. Secondly, most fishing areas were poor and therefore particularly vulnerable to natural hazards like aridity, typhoons, floods, earthquake and mini-tsunamis, (Anzbalagan and Nirmala, 2005; Re´gnier, 2007). Therefore, post-disaster economic rehabilitation, even if partly or fully successful, does not necessarily decrease pre-existing vulnerability of various poor segments of local populations (GTCA, 2005; ODI, 2005; Stro¨mberg, 2007; TDHG, 2005). Furthermore, the field case studies have also demonstrated the difficulty to start new microeconomic initiatives even where civil society and social networks are somehow organized and may be prepared to do so with appropriate facilitation support (Nakagawa and Rajib, 2004). In Aceh, a 2007 evaluation of the TdH-I projects has shown that the rehabilitation resources disbursed have helped local communities to return to their pre-disaster condition. The focus has cautiously been on pre-existing microeconomic sectors providing the bulk of employment and revenue. Some sustainable development inputs have been injected whenever possible, such as the creation of cooperatives and self-help groups. Similarly in Tamil Nadu, direct livelihood assistance has not gone much beyond the restoration of pre-disaster economic conditions. Most resources have been used for housing reconstruction and replacement of fishing boats and nets, and much less for any other sector except support to coastal farmers in restoring land fertility (Geethalakshmi, 2006). TdH-CH has been among the very few organizations able to incubate a few new microeconomic and social activities, mainly because its Indian partner NGO, namely PAD, was already active on the local development front years before the tsunami (Re´gnier, 2007). The fine chemistry for starting small business ventures is never guaranteed, even under “normal” conditions (meaning absence of natural hazards). Most domestic and foreign NGOs have little or no expertise in new small business start-up, especially in a post-disaster context. They have neither skills nor staff to identify new potential markets and facilitate access to business development services. The very notion of markets can be even challenged in many parts of developing countries, even under normal times (Prahalad, 2006). When a disaster strikes, it is said that local markets cease to function properly. Wherever the local economy is both formal and informal, it may be more correct to speak of grassroot economic transactions than of properly institutionalized markets. In the context of a disaster, such transactions are interrupted or significantly displaced. Duration of post-tsunami livelihood recovery intervention Over two years after the tsunami, many national and foreign development actors are still at work in Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka. When should post-disaster livelihood recovery intervention be normally terminated (Duyne-Barenstein, 2006)? Most operating agencies usually stick to the objective of restoring, if possible, the prior livelihood situation. Once this goal has been more or less achieved, recovery intervention should withdraw. Benchmarking the limits of post-disaster rehabilitation should be a main concern in order to be able to decide when it is time either to go home, or eventually to transform local operations into pure development activities not related

to the prior catastrophe any more. The problem is not only how to assess post-disaster damages, but to compare with the prior economic situation (UNORC and BRR, 2007). Such evaluation might be infeasible in most developing and emerging countries where public administration does not keep detailed economic records location by location, and sector by sector, under normal times, even less in case of frequent disasters. Lack of data and of access to information sources prevail (BAPPENAS, 2005). In Aceh, the situation was aggravated by civil war during several decades. However, an economic and social assessment was conducted in 2005-2006 by local authorities and foreign donors. This proved to be crucial to contextualize some meaningful recovery projects after the tsunami. This discussion is further complicated by several considerations. A first one deals with the obvious limits of rehabiliting pre-existing microeconomic activities in poor or vulnerable areas located in developing countries (DFID, 2005; FAO, 2005). In other words, the central question is whether post-disaster livelihood recovery intervention should stop there, or whether it should promote not only the replication but also the diversification of pre-existing economic activities, and even support the incubation and start up of new ones able to increase employment and income opportunities. A second difficulty is to define the sustainability of livelihood recovery and economic rehabilitation. Does it refer to the proper sustainability of those economic activities already in existence prior the disaster? If it also refers to environmental aspects, then development agencies should inject some inputs related to that dimension, even more when a location like the Gulf of Mannar is classified as a national ocean park. If it should also relate to future disaster preparedness, especially in developing areas like Aceh or Tamil Nadu vulnerable to natural hazards, then economic and social rehabilitation should also include disaster awareness and coping strategies so that local populations can anticipate economically and logistically the next catastrophe (IFRC, 2005). Working on long-term and sustainable development issues could have much risk reduction pertinence in countries frequently affected by natural hazards. However, there might be few international agencies ready to commit themselves in the long-term (perhaps just very few OECD countries, such as Japan, are ready to address this enormous challenge). A third risk lies in the likely reproduction by many development agencies and NGOs – in the name of livelihood recovery and economic rehabilitation – of their own development agendas without full consideration of the characteristics of a specific location and society affected by a disaster. The next question to be raised is why should development agencies automatically transform every single place affected by a disaster into a new long-term development cooperation area? Instead, they could be invited to focus more, together with national and local disaster planning agencies, on the reduction of vulnerabilities to natural hazards and climate change. A final note should discuss how and how far the surviving victims of a disaster can transform themselves overnight in so-called beneficiaries of humanitarian assistance and development cooperation programs. At most, they may welcome the intrusive nature of external relief to survive, and then to restore their livelihoods in the shortest delays possible so that individual and communitarian autonomy can be re-established. Their degree of openness to foreign developers should be analysed from this angle, keeping also in mind that post-disaster relief does not reach everyone, and can be diverted more than once by client-patron relationships or corruption. Local authorities

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and populations may not always understand or be ready to absorb massive humanitarian and development intervention (Fritz Institute, 2005; IFRC, 2006; IFTDH, 2005). One should also realize that the propensity of natives to absorb natural hazards (of course less exceptional than the tsunami) and to cope with surviving strategies over time is considered as rather high, taking into account that external assistance may be frequently lacking or not be able to reach various isolated locations or marginalized populations. Some disaster observers even argue that strong post-disaster intervention may disturb or displace local development capacities, and that post-disaster management strategies may not always be development friendly. This last observation may lead us to another wide debate, which is to sanction whether post-disaster livelihood recovery and development cooperation are inter-related or have nothing to do with one another. The very short-term timing of emergency relief and the long-term dimension of any development cooperation process tend to militate in favour of a clear distinction between the two. References Adams, L. (2006), “Learning from cash response to the tsunami”, Issue Paper No 1, September, Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG), London. AIDMI (All India Disaster Mitigation Institute) (2005), “Transferring risk through micro-insurance, micro-credit and livelihood relief”, Best Practice Case Studies, Ahmedabad. Albala-Bertrand, J. (1993), Political Economy of Large Natural Disasters, Clarendon Press, Oxford. Anzbalagan, P. and Nirmala, M.I.F. (2005), Study on the Impact of Tsunami in North Tamil Nadu on Fishing and other Communities Involved in Allied Fishing Activities, study commissioned by North Tamil Nadu Tsunami Relief and Rehabilitation Committee, Chennai, December. Arockiasamy, X. (2005), Fisheries Policies of the Government and the Status of Fishing Community, Report to People’s Action for Development, Vembar. Asian Development Bank (1997), Asian Development Bank Microentreprise Development: Not by Credit Alone, Asian Development Bank, Manila. Asian Development Bank and Government of Japan (2005), Proposed Grant Assistance Indonesia: Assistance for Restoration of Microenterprise and Microfinance in Aceh, Asian Development Bank and Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction, Manila. BAPPENAS (2005), Indonesia: Preliminary Damage and Loss Assessment – The December 26, 2004 Natural Disaster, a Technical Report prepared for the Consultative Group on Indonesia and the International Donor Community, BAPPENAS, Jakarta. BPS of Nangroe Aceh Darussalam and BAPPEDA (2005), Executive Summary – Statistic Macro Economy and Social Economy, BPS of Nangroe Aceh Darussalam, Banda Aceh. BRR (Indonesian Agency for Rehabilitation and Reconstruction) (2006), Aceh and Nias Two Years after the Tsunami, Progress Report, BRR, Banda Aceh. BRR and United Nations (2005a), Tsunami Recovery Status Report Summary, BRR and United Nations, Banda Aceh. BRR and United Nations Information Management Service (2005b), Tsunami Recovery Status Report, BRR and United Nations Information Management Service, Office of the UN Recovery Coordinator for Aceh and Nias, Banda Aceh.

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International Federation Terre des Hommes (2005), IFTDH Report on Tsunami: Drawing Lessons from Terre des Hommes Experience in the Tsunami Zone, IFTDH International Secretariat, Geneva. International Labour Organization (2005a), Working out of Disaster: Improving Employment and Livelihood in Countries Affected by the Tsunami, ILO, Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok. International Labour Organization (2005b), “Financial services to rebuild livelihoods in Aceh”, paper presented at Microfinance Conference, Microfinance Coordinating Committee and International Labour Office, Banda Aceh, Indonesia, 21-22 June 2005. International Labour Organization (2006), Survey of the Demand for Microfinance Services in Coastal Aceh, International Labour Office, Banda Aceh. Kahn, M.E. (2005), “The death toll from natural disasters: the role of income, geography and institutions”, Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 87 No. 2, pp. 271-84. Kull, P. (2005), “Disaster risk mitigation: potential of micro finance for tsunami recovery”, southasiadisasters.net, Vol. 7, pp. 4-6. Kumar Anand, T.S. and Newport, J. (2005), “Role of microfinance in disaster mitigation”, Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 176-82. Kunreuther, H. (1996), “Mitigating disaster losses through insurance”, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Vol. 12 Nos 2-3, pp. 171-87. Lloyd-Jones, T. (2006), Mind the Gap! Post-disaster Reconstruction and the Transition from Humanitarian Relief, RICS, University of Westminster, Westminster. McCulloch, L. (2005), Aceh: Then and Now, Minority Rights Group International, London. Mechler, R., Linnerooth-Bayer, J. and Peppiatt, D. (2006), Disaster Insurance for the Poor? A Review of Microinsurance for Natural Disaster Risk in Developing Countries, ProVention Consortium/IIASA, Geneva. Meredith, G., Nelson, R.E. and Neck, P.A. (1982), The Practice of Entrepreneurship, International Labour Organization, Geneva. Nakagawa, Y. and Rajib, S. (2004), “Social capital: a missing link to disaster recovery”, International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 5-35. Okuyama, Y. (2003), “Economics of natural disasters: a critical review”, paper presented at the 50th North American Meeting, Regional Science Association International, Philadelphia, 20-22 November 2003. Overseas Development Institute (2005), The Indian Ocean Tsunami: How Can the Region Recover Economically?, ODI Options 34, London. Prahalad, C.K. (2006), The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty through Profits, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, Wharton School Publishing, Upper Saddle River, NJ. Rasmussen, T. (2004), “Macroeconomic implications of natural disasters in the Caribbean”, Working paper 04/224, International Monetary Fund, Washington DC. Re´gnier, P. (2007), From Post-Tsunami Emergency Assistance to Livelihood Recovery in South India: Exploring the Contribution of Microentrepreneurship Initiatives in the Gulf of Mannar, Tamil Nadu, International Federation Terre des Hommes/Terre des Hommes Suisse/Graduate Institute of Development Studies, Geneva. South India Federation of Fishing Societies (2006), “Post-tsunami rehabilitation of fishing livelihoods”, paper presented at Terre des Hommes Switzerland Workshop, Pondicherry, India, 25-26 February 2006.

Stro¨mberg, D. (2007), “Natural disasters, economic development, and humanitarian aid”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 21 No. 3, pp. 199-222. Swayam, Shikshan Prayog (2007), Beyond Recovery: Empowerment and Mobilization through Community Development, Mumbai. TDHG (Terre des Hommes Germany) (2005), Annual Report 2005: India/South Asia, TDHG Coordination Office, Pune. Telford, J. and Cosgrave, J. (2007), “The international humanitarian system and the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunamis”, Disasters, Vol. 31 No. 1, pp. 1-28. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (2004), Unleashing Entrepreneurship: Making Business Work for the Poor, Commission on the Private Sector and Development, UNDP, New York, NY. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (2005), Reducing Risks from Tsunami: Disaster and Development, UNDP Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery, Geneva. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP (2006), Building Blocks for Sustainable Recovery, 2nd Annual Report of the Aceh/Nias Emergency Response and Transitional Recovery (ERTR) Programme, UNDP, Jakarta. UNORC and BRR (2007), Tsunami Recovery Indicators Package (TRIP) – For Aceh and Nias, UNORC/BRR, Jakarta. World Bank (2002), Microfinance and Disaster Risk Management: Experiences and Lessons Learned, World Bank, Washington, DC. World Bank (2005a), “Surviving disasters and supporting recovery: a guidebook for microfinance institutions”, Disaster Management Working Papers Series No. 10, World Bank, Washington DC. World Bank (2005b), Lessons from Natural Disasters and Emergency Reconstruction, Operations Evaluation Department, World Bank, Washington, DC. Further reading Asian Development Bank, United Nations and World Bank (2005), India Post-Tsunami Recovery Program: Preliminary Damage and Needs Assessment, 8 March, Asian Development Bank, and World Bank, New Delhi. International Red Cross Committee (2004), “CRC assistance policy (adopted by the Assembly of the International Committee of the Red Cross on 29 April 2004)”, International Review of the Red Cross, Reports and Documents, Vol. 86 No. 855, pp. 677-93.

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Lessons from the 26 December 2004 tsunami Julie Morin Association Planet Risk, Montgeron, France and Ge´oSciences Re´union, Universite´ de la Re´union, Saint Denis, France, and

Benjamin De Coster, Raphae¨l Paris, Franck Lavigne, Franc¸ois Flohic and Damien Le Floch Association Planet Risk, Montgeron, France Abstract Purpose – Following the 26 December 2004 tsunami, Planet Risk NGO took part in the international research program TSUNARISK and ATIP-CNRS Jeune Chercheur. The aim of this paper is to encourage the development of tsunami-resilient communities essentially through educative actions. Design/methodology/approach – The tsunami risk in Indonesia was assessed by researchers. Planet Risk then used scientific findings and advice for building adapted prevention actions among Javanese populations. Findings – Many people could have survived if they had received a basic knowledge of tsunamis. The Indonesian public as well as local authorities must be educated to face tsunami risk. To be efficient, this education must be adapted to local cultural and geographical characteristics. Collaboration between researchers and practitioners is a good means of reaching such an objective. Originality/value – The paper is the result of a two-year successful collaboration between interdisciplinary scientific teams and an NGO team. It demonstrates that an efficient prevention scheme can be implemented through this kind of collaboration. To the authors’ knowledge it is the first time that such tsunami education programmes have been led in Indonesia. Keywords Tidal waves, Indonesia, Hazards, Education Paper type General review

Disaster Prevention and Management Vol. 17 No. 3, 2008 pp. 430-446 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0965-3562 DOI 10.1108/09653560810887338

This paper is in memory of Rino Cahyadi, the authors’ colleague and friend, who took part in the TSUNARISK project. Funding of TSUNARISK and ATIP Jeune Chercheur projects came from the De´le´gation Interministe´rielle pour l’aide Post-Tsunami (DIPT, project No. 161), the French Embassy in Indonesia and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France. The authors would like to thank the ATIP and TSUNARISK teams for their collaboration: Patrick Wassmer, Daniel Brunstein, Delphine Grancher and Christopher Gomez (LGP UMR 8591 CNRS), Jean-Christophe Gaillard (UMR PACTE 5194 CNRS), Samuel Etienne, Franck Vautier, Cyril Bernard, Benjamin Barthomeuf and Emilie Desgages (Geolab UMR 6042 CNRS), Je´roˆme Fournier (MNHN, Dinard), Emmanuel Poizot (Intechmer, CNAM Cherbourg), Fre´de´ric Leone, Freddy Vinet and Jean-Charles Denain (Gester, Montpellier), Taufik Gunawan, Fachrizal, Iman and Syahnan (Indonesian Meteorological and Geophysical Agency), Junun Sartohadi, Adi Widagdo, Rino Cahyadi, Anggri Setiawan, Djati Mardiatno, Mujiono and Syamsul (Gadjah Mada University). IPGP contribution No. 2349. Many thanks to the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and valuable advice.

Introduction The 26 December 2004 tsunami was the most deadly tsunami and one of the greatest disasters in historical times. Some 280,000 people were killed in South Asia and East Africa (Iemura et al., 2006). Sumatra Indonesian island was the most affected area with about 178,000 dead. It sparked unparalleled media-related impact and humanitarian aid. Indonesia and especially the Aceh Province will need several years to get it about. The 26 December 2004 tsunami was of course unusually violent, but we need to keep in mind deadly tsunamis are frequent in Indonesia. This country may have faced more than 250 tsunamis during the four last centuries, more than 35 per cent of them being deadly. The last decade records testify this: some 1960 people killed in Flores in 1992,238 in West Java in 1994, 110 in Irian Jaya in 1996, 733 in South Java in 2006 (Lavigne et al., 2007). A tsunami hits Indonesia almost every two years on average. These recent tsunamis highlighted great gaps in risk management and prevention, and led to an increased awareness of scientist community and Indonesian authorities. In response the TREMORS seismic network was created in 1996. The Meteorological and Geophysical Agency of Indonesia (BMG) manages this network operating 24 hours a day. The 26 December 2004 earthquake’s warning has simultaneously been transmitted to Indonesian authorities and diffused on Metro TV national channel, five minutes before the tsunami arrival on Banda Aceh city, Northern Sumatra. Unfortunately this lapse of time was not enough to prevent a major disaster. Amongst other reasons, the disaster extent is partly due to a lack of prevention and preparedness among populations. Two research programs were born in France to reconstitute the 26 December 2004 event, find answers to the gaps highlighted, and engage an operational approach for the tsunami risk mitigation. The final aim is to save lives in the future by building tsunami-resilient communities. Tsunami resilience is a young concept created so as to orientate tsunami mitigation measures when no disaster is occurring. At first Bernard (1999) described tsunami-resistant communities as communities able to produce tsunami hazard maps, implement and maintain education, and develop early warning systems. The concept then enriched in the frame of the American National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (NTHMP) and the TsunamiReady Program developed by NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) since 2001. Dengler (2005) defines the benchmarks that a coastal community should fulfil to access the resilient community status as: understand the tsunami hazard, possess the necessary mitigation tools, disseminate information about the tsunami hazard, exchange information with other at-risk areas, and institutionalize planning for disaster management. Jonientz-Trisler et al. (2005) offer a comprehensive definition of tsunami-resilient communities: these communities “may suffer some inevitable damage, but will have planned, exercised, and educated its citizens and its leaders in ways to save lives, protected as much property as possible, tried to ensure safe location for critical functions the community needs, and will use lessons from a tsunami event suffered by their community or other communities to improve their level of resilience for future events”. Gaillard (2007) adds that these communities “are able to overcome the damages brought by the occurrence of natural hazards, either through maintaining their pre-disaster social fabric, or through accepting marginal or larger change in order to survive. The concept of resilience is thus intimately linked to the concept of change. Post-disaster changes within the

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impacted society may be technological, economic, behavioral, social or cultural in nature”. Indonesia needs these changes to recover after the December 2004 disaster and be prepared to the next tsunami. Our first aim is to support these changes and to encourage the development of tsunami-resilient communities in the whole Indonesian threatened territory. The scientific work is directly translated in concrete preventive actions notably with an education campaign led by the French NGO Planet Risk under the scientists’ supervisory control. Other tsunamis will undoubtedly arise. Indonesian public and authorities must be educated to face them. Education plays a large part in all tsunami mitigations programs (Priest et al., 1996; Dudley, 1999; Prasad et al., 2000; Aswathanarayana, 2005; Darienzo et al., 2005; Dengler, 2005; Jonientz-Trisler et al., 2005; Farreras et al., 2007; Gregg et al., 2007; Joku et al., 2007; Satake et al., 2007) and is considered to be a key tool for the coastal communities’ resilience’s development. Review of educational needs to face tsunamis Keating (2006) invites researchers to increase their efforts on the topics of education and tsunami risk, which are topics with the least number of publications. Despite the fact that education is not a focal point of tsunami research, scientific papers often underline the need for preventive educative activities among coastal populations. This tendency has increased since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami which unfortunately highlighted many examples of inappropriate public reactions facing an impending tsunami. The most common one is a description of people, following the withdrawal of the sea, gathering fish grounded on the beaches. The unawareness of local people and the lack of a warning system are two main reasons why the tsunami was so deadly. Although the wave’s height ranged from ten to 30 m, many people should have escaped in time if they had had a basic knowledge of this hazard. Two kinds of examples testify to this. Seeing the sea’s withdrawal, Simeulue Island inhabitants immediately escaped towards surrounding mountains. Consequently only 44 deaths occurred (Gaillard et al., 2008) whilst 178,000 Banda Aceh inhabitants passed away. Simeulue is located west of Sumatra close from the earthquake epicentre. The accounts passed from generation to generation of the deadly 1907 tsunami enabled them to understand what was happening (Gaillard et al., 2008). Simeulue inhabitants even have their own word to name the phenomenon: smong. The 26 December 2004 consequences led the Indonesian government to consider the integration of this word into the official Indonesian language. This helped to increase national awareness of tsunami hazards, all the more so as smong creates a very helpful acronym: SeMua Orang Naik Gunung (“Everybody move up on the hills”). Another evocation of inherited knowledge is reported by Adger et al. (2005) on Surin Island in Thailand where fishing communities, attentive to nature forewarnings, avoided the tsunami. Tilly Smith, a ten-year-old British girl vacationing in Thailand, interpreted the receding of water as a forewarning sign of the impending tsunami, remembering her geography lessons at school. Her warning allowed the evacuation of the beach and surroundings, such that there was no loss of life (Unesco, 2006). These examples of passed-on experience, or simple scholar knowledge suggests that loss of life is easily avoidable by teaching populations to understand tsunamis. Nevertheless, topographic and human settings in Banda Aceh make the city highly

vulnerable to tsunamis, even those of lower magnitude than the 2004 event. Disaster in Banda Aceh was hard to avoid, but thousands of lives along the north and especially west coast could have been saved. Education of the population appears to be indispensable even in areas where an early warning system has been established. Indeed, such high-tech preparedness measures are not infallible from technical dysfunctions or other problems during critical periods of alert communication. On 17 July 2006, while the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center was transmitting a warning to Indonesian authorities, a new tsunami killed 733 people in Pangandaran, south of Java. The alert did not reach local authorities and populations due to political considerations and miscommunication. Even if such a system normally works, we cannot guarantee that the population will not respond in undesirable ways, as was the case at Hilo where siren soundings incomprehension contributed to fatalities in 1960 (Gregg et al., 2007). Furthermore, global man-made warning systems are unusable in the case of locally generated tsunamis, for which the time to activate the warning system before the arrival of the waves is too short. Global warning systems such as the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and the new-born Indian Ocean Warning System can be efficient for distant tsunamis only, i.e. those with a source located hundreds of kilometres away from the coast. And even for distant tsunamis it is unbelievable that these systems allow the alert to be delivered to some remote coastal areas in Indonesia and elsewhere. For areas located closer to the tsunami’s source, educational activities for local communities are the best ways to avoid loss of human life (Darienzo et al., 2005; Dengler, 2005; Eisner, 2005; Walker, 2005; Gregg et al., 2007). Local alert systems can efficiently complement this awareness-raising. On Baron beach, southern Java, life-guards can empty the surroundings relatively quickly via localised siren soundings, if tsunami forewarning signs are observed. For these reasons we suggest that natural warning signs should provide the earliest warning to populations, whatever the origin of the tsunami, distant or local. For some authors, risk education should be provided and institutionalized in scholar programs (Walker, 2005; Johnston et al., 2005; Jonientz-Trisler et al., 2005) because children are most receptive to this kind of information, and will communicate their new knowledge to their family (Dudley and Lee, 1998). Other authors underline that education must be continuous to face the renewal of population with tourists and new residents arriving (Darienzo et al., 2005). What is less often underlined is the need to adapt the education according to local contexts (Alverson, 2005). In order to respond to this educational need in operational and research fields, researchers invited a French NGO, Planet Risk, to integrate the TSUNARISK and ATIP-CNRS Jeune Chercheur research programs. A scientific, pedagogic, and operational approach of tsunami risk prevention TSUNARISK and ATIP-CNRS Jeune Chercheur are Franco-Indonesian pluridisciplinary programs created to respond to the needs and gaps disclosed by the 26 December 2004 tsunami in matters of: cartography, modelling, impacts on coastal areas and risk prevention. The research activities immediately applicable to risk prevention more precisely deal with:

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the hazard zoning (modelling adjustments, hazard cartography, evacuation roads and refuge areas cartography, hazard knowledge: trigger and propagation mechanisms); the recurrence of tsunamis in Indonesia (paleotsunamis’ study, surveys on historical tsunamis, archives’ study), their environmental impact (coastal erosion, sedimentation, coral reefs resilience. . .); the forewarning signs (perception surveys, bibliography); and the population behaviour in order to deduct practical consequences and the right attitudes to adopt in order to face a tsunami before the waves’ arrival, and once carried away by the wave (culture and perception surveys, knowledge of propagation mechanisms, testimonies in bibliography, evacuation maps).

Some of the resulting findings are at the heart of awareness-raising tools’ creation. We now have a better knowledge of the tsunami propagation mechanisms ashore as well as the Indonesian most threatened areas. As forewarning signs of an impending tsunami, ground shaking and unusual sea-level, wave forms, sounds, smells, and animals’ behaviour have numerously times been described in populations’ testimonies and scientific references. Level, colour, flavour and odour changes in well waters, as described by Lavigne et al. (2008), provide a possible means of warning people who do not have a sight of the sea. The findings again highlight educational needs. The awareness of Acehnese was low before the 26 December 2004 event (Iemura et al., 2006; Gaillard et al., 2008). In spite of the 1964 deadly tsunami in North Sumatra and other Indonesian deadly tsunamis described above, many people had never heard about tsunamis, and only very few knew that it is possible for a tsunami to happen after a big earthquake. Another main point is that most people are unaware of the possibility of successive waves which can hit for several hours, and are unknowing that the first wave is rarely the highest. Zetler (1998) and Kelly et al. (2006) have reported such lack of knowledge respectively in California and Hawaii. The extent of disaster and its media-related impact lead us to guess that a large part of the Indonesian population is now aware of these elements. Unfortunately mass media have essentially focused on the December 26 tragic consequences, without offering substantial information about tsunamis. Adapted education remains essential. Of approximately 62 per cent of the 1,000 interviewed Aceh inhabitants who left their homes fearing a new tsunami after the 28 March 2005 strong earthquake, only 57 per cent made it toward safe areas (Japan International Cooperation Agency, 2005). These few elements were integrated among many others (for details see Lavigne and Paris, 2008) to our prevention tools, or just helped to their conception. Priority Indonesian places where we should first develop preventive actions were determined after the designing of a Tsunami Hazard Map of Indonesia (THMI) (Figure 1). A tsunami database was built after compiling and reworking the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) – NOAA (http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/seg/hazard/ tsu.shtml) and the HTDB (n.d.) database (Tsunami Laboratory in Novosibirsk – Russia: http://tsun.sscc.ru/On_line_Cat.htm). The works published by Hamzah et al. (2000) and Rynn (2002) provided complementary information and a validation of some doubtful events. All of the events listed in the database were integrated in a GIS environment (ArcGIS 9.1 provided by ESRI) and the Indonesian coasts were divided

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Figure 1. Tsunami hazard map of Indonesia (THMI)

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into 39 main areas. We added to the GIS earthquake database (provided by the NGDC, the USGS and the Smithsonian Institution), the main tectonic lineaments and a map of the cities and population densities provided by the ESRI network. The legend presents four levels of hazard: very high (more than ten attested events since 400 years), high (5-10 events), moderate (2-4 events) and low (, 2 events). Some qualitative modifications were made to these quantitative parameters, regarding the coastal morphology, the spatial and time distribution of the past tsunamis, their intensity and recurrence, the validity of the events, and the limited observations for the eastern provinces. We have highlighted on the map the main tsunamigenic earthquakes that have occurred during the four last centuries (epicentre and year). We then defined 8 cities coinciding with a high to very high tsunami hazard, as priorities for risk mitigation programs and evacuation planning. The sites selected are big cities at low elevation with some aggravating specificities (peninsula or bay suitable for centralizing tsunami waves, activities relating to ports, etc.). Even if only exposed to a moderate hazard, Cilacap city, South of Java, has also been chosen as one of these next spots due to its very low elevation, its 1.5 million inhabitants under 10 meters of elevation, and its petroleum harbour. Planet Risk will introduce the preventive actions outlined above into these specific spots where more precise modelling and cartography will be realized. No sooner was the conception of these preventive actions finished in March 2006 than they were tested among populations of the south coast of Java island. Specific educative actions among the Javanese population Focusing on the before-mentioned central idea that lack of knowledge considerably increases the vulnerability of population, Planet Risk built up a strategy to increment Tsunarisk and ATIP-CNRS scientific parts with adapted prevention actions among populations. A 30 mn Franco-Indonesian documentary film was produced with the advice of scientists. The film begins with a survival testimony, a method used at the Pacific Tsunami Museum for its power to catch the public attention (Dudley, 1999). Then it describes the tsunami history in Indonesia and past disasters, through screens of the 1907 (Simeulue), 1994 (West Java) and 2004 (Banda Aceh) tsunamis, in order to raise population awareness regarding the phenomenon frequency. It also presents in a pedagogic way: tsunami sources and mechanisms, forewarning signs, life guard’s advice, and an evacuation drill on Java southern coast, in order to teach the population the right attitude during a tsunami. The movie is supplemented with educational leaflets (Figure 2) and sets of six pedagogic posters which complement the content of the movie, and with a photographic exhibition of the 26 December 2004 tsunami. The educational aids were participatory developed, taking into account scientific findings and advice as well as the opinion of people from various origins (teachers and students, villagers, stakeholders in risk management and authorities, etc.) through informal arguments and committee stages as well as official interviews, to define their form and content. A first version was tested (by all these categories too) and was improved, following the advice harvested, to make its content as clear as possible. TA definitive version was then disseminated in the South Java threatened coastal villages. This coast was selected because of its high tsunami hazard’s exposure, high density of population, and because of the researchers’ and Planet Risk’s workers’ experience in this area. The spread of information was realized through road shows,

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Figure 2. Example of education tool: the leaflet introducing forewarning signs of an impending tsunami distributed to populations

with projection of the film in public places, exhibitions, and distribution of leaflets and posters in schools and villages (Plate 1). All of the materials promote community-based and participation processes, based on the opinion that the population should be self-prepared, and should adopt adapted behaviours without waiting for official warning, if they observe signs of an impending tsunami. Generic information on tsunamis in Indonesia is given throughout the documents. Then, after having previewed the documents, a debate is opened to discuss possible adaptations suitable for local contexts (where are the safest and unsafest places in their village, which road should be chosen to escape, how to communicate and warn, etc.). Discussions were carried out with local stakeholders at the district level (kabupaten), and with chiefs of the villages at the local level, who have a legitimate power within the community for ordering evacuation. While tsunami monitoring and warnings are officially driven in Jakarta, this participatory system suggests that everyone can partake in this process, which could gain advantages in being tackled in bottom-up as well as top-down ways. Almost 5,000 people took part in the educative activities in this preliminary step. To work efficiently, prevention not only has to be adapted to local context and collectively developed. It also should be made durable, and should be periodically examined and modified if necessary. In order to maintain the prevention actions engaged, a permanent centre for tsunami risk sensitization was created in Parangtritis (located on Figure 1), a greatly frequented beach of southern Central Java (tens of thousands people arriving during weekends, feasts and ceremony days). Such a centre makes information permanently and freely accessible to people visiting the area. Its location a short distance from the shoreline aims to increase the direct impact of documents by giving people a greater risk awareness. On negative side, the participation discussion

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Plate 1. Posters exhibition at Parangkusumo primary school during the sensitization campaign

stage – usually held just after the educational documents have been disseminated – cannot be maintained for financial reasons, and thus people are not guided to adapt the received educational information to their local living context. To maintain the discussion stage, it would require the permanent attendance of a person with perfect knowledge of each kilometer of the Indonesian coastal area. We hope the current documentation made available will eventually include information on a high number of specific places, so that everyone coming to Parangtritis can find information on the residential areas, notably through precise risk mapping. The information already in place also should evolve. A quiz game on tsunamis delivered to visitors allows permanently assessing awareness, knowledge and perception of tsunami risk by the population and if necessary, the educational materials can then be modified. The first preventive actions gave favourable results during the strong earthquake which occurred on 27 May 2006 on Java. The inhabitants of Parangkusumo and Parangtritis coastal villages left their homes to join elevated places. The low amplitude consequential tsunami caused no injuries. Villagers expressed throughout informal interviews their feeling of being better prepared to face an impending tsunami thanks to the sensitization campaign (recognition of forewarning signs and safest places, knowledge of dangerous and adapted behaviours, awareness that each and all can take part in tsunami prevention with low means). In addition, a 91 children (9-12 years old) survey to evaluate the relevance of the education campaign (twice realized: before and after the campaign) likewise indicated a significant enhancement in understanding tsunami risk. The nine-item questionnaire allowed checking the children’s knowledge on tsunamis’ behaviour, frequency and location in Indonesia, causes, forewarning signs, behaviours to adopt in case of withdrawal of the sea or other forewarning signs observation, and safest places to go to. Results show that:

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A consequential number of children already had already received information about tsunami hazards since the mediation of Aceh. They knew that tsunamis can hit almost everywhere in Indonesia (97 per cent), are triggered by volcanic eruptions (70 per cent) and earthquakes (86 per cent), and are preceded by a subsiding sea level (62 per cent). Before the education campaign 92 per cent of children already identified hills as the safest place to escape. A short education campaign can significantly enhance the level of knowledge. Further to increasing the basic knowledge (91 to 99 per cent good answers on the questions above) the campaign led to a sudden awareness-raising of the frequency of tsunamis that hit Indonesia (15 to 75 per cent good answers) and forewarning signs (“subsiding sea level” from 63 per cent to 90 per cent; “sulphur smell” from 41 per cent to 87 per cent; “plane noise” from 52 per cent to 93 per cent). A couple of misconceptions due to the socio-cultural weight in risk perception remain after the campaign: 58 per cent of the children maintain a belief that tsunamis occur because of human sins and 31 per cent that the “dukun” (or shaman) can predict tsunamis. Other questions supply information about how children view the world: familiar places are considered as safe places (parents’ house 80 per cent, school 81 per cent) as well as cars (79 per cent) maybe because they are made of steel, appear unbreakable, and allow escaping faster in children’s mind. Surprisingly the mosque is considered as safe by only 31 per cent of them, whereas they saw pictures of remaining mosques only among ruins in Aceh. Conversely, adults often see the mosque as the safest place. These few observations clearly express the fact that children have their own perception of the surrounding world. Appropriate pedagogic tools have to be conceived to enhance their resilience.

The preventive tools will continuously be enriched and actions will be developed following the THMI guidelines. At the same time as educational actions, the Planet Risk volunteers (documentary director-geographers specialized in natural hazards, especially in Indonesia) produced a summary documentary about the TSUNARISK program as a whole (De Coster et al., 2007). It allowed complementing the scientists’ works with dozens of interviews helpful for the reconstitutions of the 26 December 2004 tsunami and general Indonesian tsunami database. This one-year-and-half collaboration between research and NGO communities was a success and should be renewed. The documentary shows steps from first field studies towards preventive actions: the relevance of scientific research is fully displayed. This documentary is in itself a good awareness development tool. The aim is now to extend these prevention actions to other territories. In Indonesia the 8 sites defined after the THMI will receive our attention (with lower attention paid to Padang because of KOGAMI’s activities already in place in the city – see below). Similar preventive actions are also planned for the Indian Ocean French islands threatened by tsunamis generated offshore Indonesia or locally. On its part, the Indonesian NGO KOGAMI (Komunitas Siaga Tsunami which means Tsunami Alert Community) carries out great educational work on Sumatra, especially in Padang, an 825,000-inhabitant city of whom the half inhabitants live near coasts. Evacuation drills and schools educational campaigns have been led by

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KOGAMI district by district in the Padang region (Stone, 2006), where a major tsunami-generating earthquake is expected by scientists (Normile, 2007). This work (for details see KOGAMI web site: http://kogami.multiply.com/) benefits from Indonesian volunteers permanently living there, and will without any doubt provide an efficacious tsunami preparedness. It brings hope to see resilient-communities’ development occurring soon.

440 Soon tsunami-resilient communities in Indonesia? What can we expect in case of a new tsunami now that the Indian Ocean Warning System is technically operating (http://ioc3.unesco.org/indotsunami/)? This system was already working when a tsunami hit Pangandaran in July 2006. Yet public and authorities’ awareness (among other reasons mainly due to socio-economic and political constraints; Gaillard et al., 2008) seriously failed to prevent hundreds of deaths. The alert was not transmitted at local level for political reasons (fear of a possible populations’ panic), and villagers did not systematically recognize natural forewarning signs. Involvement and education of both public and officials Our experience in Indonesia first highlights a classic conclusion: the deep public educational needs.We have to ensure that the efforts engaged for public tsunami educational are made sustainable. One of the most effective ways of doing this is to officially involve school programs. This should not be problematic since Unesco launched a World Campaign in 2006 on disaster prevention through education, focused on children: “Disaster prevention starts at school” (Unesco, 2006). The possibility of a multi-hazard education should be explored. To be efficient, this education cannot occur without taking account of local specificities. The scientists’ role is fundamental in this instance. Accurate risk cartography is essential to better define roads for evacuation, highly vulnerable and refuge areas, and so on. Cultural context and local warning organization should be explored and described in educational supports. That is the only hope for obtaining adequate responses from populations in case of impending tsunamis. In order to define efficient warning procedures it is important to observe local people and speak with them in order to understand who makes decisions within the groups, who is more vulnerable and will need help during evacuation (women are often less educated and used to stay at home, children are physically more vulnerable, tourists, if unaware of hazards and do not know the escaping areas, etc.) and so on. As Muslim religion fills a great place in people’s life, and as sounds emitted from mosques for calls to prayer raise away areas, it could be very beneficial to ask muezzins to be the warning self-starters. Additionally, populations will pay closer attention when fully feeling concerned if the place where they live is specifically included in the message. With this in mind, Planet Risk filmmakers have taught documentary production techniques to an Indonesian researcher working on disasters. The shift has been put in place to ensure the continuity of actions. The recognition of specific functions of different contexts will also help to involve and educate local authorities or community-based organizations. It is a focal point to ensure the protection against tsunamis. Scientists have a role to play in explaining the ins and outs of a warning’s trigger to all-levels authorities and decision makers

responsible for the warning communication. The warning system’s existence must not live down the necessity of institutional and operational preparedness. Media may also play a fundamental role in warning procedures during natural hazards management. For this reason they also should benefit from special educational measures. From 2006 a special pips is emitted on Metro TV national channel as soon as an earthquake occurs whatever the broadcasting in progress. Unfortunately the seismic location is not indicated and so citizens do not know how to interpret the signal and react. It demonstrates the need to make mediation precise and reliable. Strong cross-level interactions are required to create acceptable level of preparedness to face tsunamis. It implies that a participatory approach involving the whole population (all ages, gender, social and educational levels. . .) is absolutely incontrovertible. Committee stages should thus be institutionalized in all threatened areas. Now that a global warning system for the Indian Ocean is in place, people could reasonably feel safer and stop being so watchful. We have to reinforce our vigilance about these education problems to avoid another disaster. Education must consider the potential lapse linked to this system to preempt them. The bibliography about the Pacific Warning System describes failures in warning signal interpretation, problems or false or minimal alerts, inadequate public responses to warnings, unknowing of evacuation roads and refuge area, etc. (Dudley, 1999; Bernard, 2005; Darienzo et al., 2005; Dengler, 2005; Jonientz-Trisler et al., 2005; Johnston et al., 2005; Gregg et al., 2007). The lessons learned from these Pacific experiences are an asset to exploit so as to maximise efficiency of the new-born Indian system. Researchers’ responsibility in operational application process Scientific findings should be translated in a comprehensive way to contribute to risk management and educational tools development. It is particularly true for the natural hazards ambit of which the first aim is to save lives (and secondly protect property, goods and infrastructures). Keating (2006) is alone in clearly underlining how it is important to reflect on how tsunami research contributes to public risk education. Via scientific publications, researchers have some kind of “humanitarian responsibility” to assume: to make their results accessible and to ensure their application. The accessibility of data can be achieved through risk information centres, web pages, workshops, community meetings, articles, various animations, media, etc. Collaborations with NGOs and other agencies should gain by being institutionalized. Scientists would find, through these relations, an opportunity for their results relegation and utile utilization. It is a good way for them to pursue research jobs while others pursue mitigation efforts based on their earlier findings. Moreover populations will be more receptive if the information is disseminated from NGOs or other institutions experienced in ground-level realities. In Indonesia as well as in France and many other countries, there is not a strong link between operational and research worlds. We could emulate Japan and USA, leaders of tsunami mitigation who understand the need for a link between the two, and put this into practice. The effective common work realized by researchers and Planet Risk teams has demonstrated it is feasible. The first education campaign enabled an increase of the population’s awareness on southern Java coast. Planet Risk delivered precise and efficient messages after considering research data, findings and advice. Scientists did not need to use particular methods to deliver their results, as most of Planet Risk’s workers have

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received scientific education and are trained to work in disaster management. In other cases, map making is probably one of the best ways for scientists to provide clear and complete information to non scientific people. For economical and practical considerations, NGOs can engage mass education programs to teach universal elements as forewarning signs and so on. However this education will never be totally efficient without considering local socio-cultural characteristics (that induce the inhabitants’ response facing a tsunami) and local geography and territorial planning (hazard inundation maps, evacuation roads, safe areas, etc.). Good sensitization programs cannot ignore these specific features. Practitioners in this sense have a “scientific responsibility” to assume. It is also the case that the research programs described in this paper would have lost a great part of interest without these direct prevention applications. In this case we can argue that scientists have assumed their “humanitarian responsibility”. Soon tsunami-resilient communities in Indonesia? All of the scientists’ efforts and fund raising in support of tsunami education is not yet sufficient to establish tsunami-resilient communities; no more than efficient warning systems. It is out in the open that the underdevelopment heavily contributes to disasters’ occurrence. Indonesia still has a long way to go before reaching acceptable resilience level. First and foremost, funding issues have to be resolved by the Indonesian government to fulfil this objective: investments in emergency services, stakeholders’ training, technological investments, etc., and most of all reduction of poverty (Levy and Gopalakrishnan, 2005; Gaillard et al., 2008). Optimal conditions then will be reached to promote education. Comparison between Japan and Indonesia, who have a similar disposition to natural hazards, is sufficient to value the vulnerability with regard to level of development (15 per cent of tsunamis kill people in Japan against 35 per cent in Indonesia). National attributes must however be mentioned. The level of education is relatively good in Indonesia (adult literacy rate: 90,4 per cent, World Bank Group, 2007) but knowledge about natural hazards is still in too short supply in schools (little information in school books, too limited knowledge of the teachers, no emergency plan in schools even in case of fire, no evacuation training). A few NGOs are debating with the Indonesian Red Cross about the terms for collaboration with the Department of Education to include risk reduction programs either within the education program or in addition to teaching time. At the 7th Disaster Risk Reduction forum hosted by the Indonesian Red Cross in Jakarta (14 November 2007) representatives of Education and Health departments were absent, while 70 representatives from national and international institutions and NGOs met to design a coordinated national plan to reduce disasters risks. After a lesson was learned from the lack of coordination experienced in Aceh, an indispensable work with the governmental authorities is now in progress. Conclusion The 26 December 2004 tsunami revealed that the case is pressing to implement an efficient warning system and improve the Indonesian population and authorities’ tsunami risk awareness and knowledge. The findings obtained through TSUNARISK and ATIP-CNRS research programs allowed Planet Risk NGO, assisted by scientific

teams, to build an educative strategy to reduce coastal areas’ vulnerability and establish some of the basics of tsunami-resilient communities. Awareness-raising is a key tool to reduce the vulnerability in threatened areas. A multi-hazard education adapted to local considerations should be provided to populations (essentially through scholar education) as well as authorities, decision makers, and media. Humanitarian partners are called to deliver funds and technical support in this perspective and the government is required to ensure the general level of development. On their part all scientists should make sure their findings are translated in a usable way and used wisely for educative actions. To that end, education should: (1) follow from collective and multidisciplinary scientific approaches; (2) be based around local knowledge; (3) share knowledge with other at-risk areas; (4) involve the community, be participative (encourage a bottom-up approach); (5) be adapted to various groups of population (children, women, tourists, surfers, etc.); (6) be diffused through various communication tools; (7) be conceived and delivered by people that the population trust, experienced in ground-level realities; (8) be pursued long-term; (9) be institutionalized (for example through scholar programs); and (10) be actualized during the time. The risk prevention unfortunately does not recover from an open behaviour. Most often it arises from necessities revealed after a disaster. Our greatest challenge is doubtless to ensure that Indonesians are ready to face the next tsunami before it occurs. Similar practices should be engaged to mitigate tsunami risk and prevent prospective disasters in all worldwide coastal areas including Mediterranean, Caribbean and so on. Planet Risk aims to carry on its sensitization actions to enhance the educational part of Indonesian communities’ resilience building – as other NGOs such as KOGAMI will do on their side. The eight sites defined after the Tsunami Hazard Map of Indonesia are of utmost importance to target. The permanent sensitization centre will be enriched by documents’ updating and completion. In the meantime scientific partners will carry on their research to further understand and prevent tsunami risk in Indonesia.

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Further reading Lavigne, F., Paris, R., Wassmer, P., Gomez, C., Brunstein, D., Grancher, D., Vautier, F., Sartohadi, J., Setiawan, A., Syahnan, G.T., Fachrizal, W.B., Mardiatno, D., Widagdo, A., Cahyadi, R., Lespinasse, N. and Mahieu, L. (2006), “Learning from a major disaster (Banda Aceh, December 26, 2004): a methodology to calibrate simulation codes for tsunami inundation models”, Zeitschrift fu¨r Geomorphologie, N.F., Suppl. 146, pp. 253-65.

446 Corresponding author Julie Morin can be contacted at: [email protected]

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