Publication: Improving the Resilience of Livelihoods to Natural Disasters
Date
2010-12
ISSN
Published
2010-12
Author(s)
Poundrik, Sandeep
Abstract
Earthquakes, floods, cyclones, and such
other hazards each year affect approximately 200 million
people. Developing countries absorbed 98 percent of these
disasters and accounted for nine out of ten disaster-related
deaths in the period 1991-2005. In fact, low and middle
income countries suffer more severe and widespread
degradation than do wealthy countries, whose insurance
market covers highly valued property and where sophisticated
tools report absolute economic loss. To make the obvious
apparent, the US$40 million losses caused by Hurricane
Andrew in the United States represented 0.3 percent of gross
development product (GDP), while one tsunami in the Maldives
decimated 66 percent of GDP. Natural disasters, in terms of
sheer loss, disproportionately impact low and middle income countries.
Citation
“Poundrik, Sandeep. 2010. Improving the Resilience of Livelihoods to Natural Disasters. EAP DRM Knowledge Notes; No. 20. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/c7c0afe4-3f4a-57ee-8272-032f8be34d57 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”