We are as strong as our weakest link Preparing for disasters
i would like to thank you for giving me
the opportunity to speak to you today at
tedx bloomsbury
you might see a disaster on the news and
wonder what it would be like if it
happened to you
or maybe you’ve lived through a disaster
in fact
because of the pandemic most of us have
lived through a disaster
today i’m going to talk to you about how
disasters
affect people living in informal
settlements in
cities of the global south and what is
being done
to address them i’m also going to tell
you about
what is actually needed to tackle the
root problems
of disasters so
now more than half of the world’s
population
is living in cities and these cities
are densely populated and
in cities of the global south many
people don’t have access
to the basic infrastructure to protect
them from hazards
at the same time climate change
and ecosystem destruction are making
hazards more severe
so what we’re seeing is that disasters
are affecting
more and more people every year
we say that risk is systemic
that is it’s inherent in societies
in the ways we live all together in the
ways we build our cities
in our politics in the inequalities that
exist in society
as the pandemic has shown we as one
community on this planet
are only as strong as our weakest link
so disasters take on different forms
there are the
big disasters that you might see on the
news
like earthquakes or like the explosion
that happened in the port of beirut last
summer
then there are the smaller scale
disasters
these might affect neighborhoods or
parts of cities
and these disasters though are equally
devastating
for those who are affected by them
then we have the everyday disasters that
cumulatively have huge impacts
on people’s health and on their
well-being
like dire disease that affects millions
around the world every day that don’t
have access
to water and sanitation
so there’s things we can do to prepare
for disasters
not only for the rich or exposed global
capital
that may be protected by insurance or by
government bailouts
but also for those least able to
withstand disasters
because it’s only when those who are
most vulnerable
are able to withstand can we say that
resilience is achieved
so resilience or the ability to
bounce back is a term
that’s often criticized for its
neoliberal connotations
if inequality persists and some people
don’t have enough access to food
or money or resources to live well
is bouncing back after disaster enough
surely resilience is about a trajectory
towards a state that is better than what
is now
so there’s a lot that we’re doing in
cities to
prepare for disasters we can build
roads into settlements so that people
can emergency vehicles can access if
there’s a fire
we can cite housing away from areas
where there are frequent flooding
we can tackle air pollution
or try to tackle air pollution we can
make welfare payments for families in
times of crisis
so there are things that can be done and
things that are being done
to tackle disasters but in fact the way
our cities are built
makes tackling these issues in a
socially just manner
more complicated
so consider kampala uganda for example
this east african city is built over a
series of hills
and not only do people live on the hills
but they also live in the low-lying
areas of the city
these areas are affected by floods on
all
for on almost a daily basis during the
rainy season
and this flooding causes really
bad things for people illnesses
skin conditions people’s businesses are
disrupted
for days and they’ve even been
really sad situations of children being
swept away
in the flood waters
so many people might choose to resettle
from these low-lying areas
if they had the financial means to but
in fact
few can afford to and despite the risks
of flooding
the reasons for staying in these central
areas of kampala are compelling
inexpensive access to food if from
markets
running a business is fairly inexpensive
with low
overheads and a lot of footfall
if you need to transport around the city
this is
fairly inexpensive and schools are more
available
and better in the central city
so even if people wanted to resettle to
the outskirts of the city
there are few jobs there access to
come to work in the central city is too
expensive for the transport
so in fact even if people do make the
move
outside many end up having to move back
to the central city later
because it’s just not affordable
so the question then is
what can we do to build resilience
when people already live in areas
exposed to hazards
like in these low-lying areas of kampala
consider was a three parish for example
this is
one of these settlements in these
low-lying areas
the kampala capital city authority has
done a number of things to try to
address the flooding
they’ve built drainage infrastructure in
key transport
areas of the city which has meant the
drainage ditch
at the lowest area of the settlement has
been improved
they’ve also built small drains through
the settlement
that would enable flood waters to move
into the larger drains
and negotiated with homeowners some of
whom have agreed to move their houses
away from the drainage infrastructure
to accommodate these new drains at the
same time
there’s a lot of things being done by
communities
in 183 there are business associations
there are savings groups there are youth
groups
and a lot of these organizations are
involved
in doing things to help improve the
environment in boise iii
things that the municipality is not able
to do
like solid waste collection there’s a
number of groups
who are involved now for example in
making
energy briquettes out of household waste
so solid waste collection not only keeps
the drains clear
when the flood waters come but also
provides income earning opportunities
households also do things to try to
mitigate the flooding problem
putting plinths raised plinth at the
door of their house
or even building the houses on top of
mounds of soil
to keep them away from the flood waters
well it’s possible to make improvements
to
the flooding situation in places like
boise iii
it’s really the deeper issues that need
to be addressed
to actually fix the problem so
access to a good income for example was
a key
election issue in uganda a few months
ago
so as i’ve been saying while we can do
things
to address disasters they’re really only
a band-aid solution
unless we can actually address these
deeper issues
so heat stress is also a major problem
for many people living in informal
settlements
in dhaka bangladesh’s largest city
there are literally millions of people
living in informal settlements
who live in one room houses and many of
these houses
don’t even have a window only a door
and so they can’t have a cross
ventilation
within their house they may have
access to some energy to have a fan
for a few hours a day but really heat
stress
has a major impact on people it affects
their ability to work and to learn
with exhaustion people lose their
stocks if they’re selling vegetables
when it’s really really hot
and people have longer term health
impacts from this problem
so there are some things that can be
done to combat the heat problem
like design solutions within houses
um there’s also interesting examples of
using parametric insurance so when
there’s heat over a number of days
people receive a payout for losses up to
their income
but if you ask people in dhaka
living in these informal settlements
what they really need
they’ll tell you they need a decent
house
because a decent house will enable them
to really live
better and to solve this problem of heat
for example because a decent house
will also have access to water and
energy infrastructure
and for people living in informal
settlements the house
is not only a place to live but it’s
often a place of production
or the storage of goods that one is
selling so the house
is a really key problem to building
resilience to disasters
so what i’m saying is that resilience is
something that is
built up outside of disaster times to
address
normal development issues that need to
be addressed in informal settlements
for example slum dwellers international
or sdi
has been working for many many years in
building
networks first of all of women’s savings
groups
and enumerations of people living in
informal settlements
and these kind of things help to give
people a voice
and being part of decision making in the
city
because they hold information about
their settlement
and who they are and how many people
they are and what conditions they live
in
and this sdi network now covers
32 countries and 478 cities
millions of people and thousands of
informal settlements
so where does this all bring us in
answering the provocations of this tedx
conference
on resilience amidst disruption
is bouncing back enough or should we
adapt together and how do we do that
my answer after working on this topic
for many years
is that building resilience to disasters
is a continuous and iterative process of
actions that are done by
many individuals over a lot of time
and it’s not just a one-off thing
but to really address the deeper issues
that create
vulnerabilities and that lead to
disasters
we need to address those underlying
things that make
people vulnerable such as
tenure insecurity access to a good
income
access to health care and to address
the politics that create these
situations
so well disasters that you may see on
the tv
might seem far away i think what the
pandemic has shown to me and challenges
like climate change
is that actually we are all one
community together
and all affected by each other and
therefore
addressing inequalities is something
that we all have a role to play in in
our daily life
in our work and in our future practice
thank you