Besides improvements in the technical regulations, the entry into force of the International Safety Management ISM Code for passenger ships in was an important step in focusing on the "human element" side of shipping, by providing an international standard for the safe management and operation of ships and for pollution prevention.
Meanwhile, the entry into force on 1 February with a phase-in period to of the amendments to the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers, has paved the way for greatly enhanced seafarer standards as well as giving IMO itself powers to check Parties' compliance with the Convention.
The STCW Convention, as amended since , includes specific training requirements for crew on passenger ships, such as training in crowd management, for use in emergency evacuation. Roll-on, roll-off ferries; high-speed craft and new craft such as Wig-in-Ground effect craft all have their own particular safety concerns. The Maritime Safety Committee MSC at its 82nd session in November-December adopted a package of amendments to SOLAS, the result of a comprehensive review of passenger ship safety initiated in with the aim of assessing whether the current regulations were adequate, in particular for the large passenger ships now being built.
The work in developing the new and amended regulations has based its guiding philosophy on the dual premise that the regulatory framework should place more emphasis on the prevention of a casualty from occurring in the first place and that future passenger ships should be designed for improved survivability so that, in the event of a casualty, persons can stay safely on board as the ship proceeds to port.
The amendments include new concepts such as the incorporation of criteria for the casualty threshold the amount of damage a ship is able to withstand, according to the design basis, and still safely return to port into SOLAS chapters II-1 and II The amendments also provide regulatory flexibility so that ship designers can meet any safety challenges the future may bring. The amendments include:. The work on passenger ship safety has based its guiding philosophy on the premise that the regulatory framework should place more emphasis on the prevention of a casualty from occurring in the first place and that future passenger ships should be designed for improved survivability so that, in the event of a casualty, persons can stay safely on board as the ship proceeds to port.
With regard to the five pillars of the guiding philosophy for the Committee's passenger ship safety initiative, the following have been achieved since the work was initiated in Improved survivability: Amendments to SOLAS chapters II-1 and II-2 and supporting guidelines that focus on essential system redundancy, management of emergencies and casualty mitigation. Regulatory flexibility: Amendments to SOLAS chapters II-1 and III and supporting guidelines that focus on promoting, through rigorous evaluation and approval procedures, the regulatory approval of new safety technologies and arrangements.
Operations in areas remote from SAR facilities: Action taken to develop amendments to SOLAS chapter III and supporting guidelines that will focus on reducing the time it takes to recover persons from survival craft and the water; supporting guidelines approved on external support from SAR Authorities, as well as guidance to assist seafarers taking part in SAR operations.
Health safety and medical care: Supporting guidelines that focus on establishing medical safety programmes and a revised Guide on Cold Water Survival.
The Committee agreed that the new amendments and guidelines should be enforced by A draft Assembly resolution on Guidelines on voyage planning for passenger ships operating in remote areas was agreed for submission to the next Assembly, scheduled for late Further consequential work to be carried out includes the development of guidelines for the approval of novel life-saving appliances DE ; and guidelines on the lay-out and ergonomic design of safety centres on passenger ships Sub-Committee on Safety of Navigation NAV.
The MSC also instructed the Sub-Committee on Stability, Load Lines and Fishing Vessel Safety SLF to consider draft amendments for water ingress detection and flooding level monitoring systems; and for a safe return to port capability for passenger ships in damaged condition. The STW Sub-Committee is instructed to review the guides for recovery techniques and cold water survival from the point of view of training. The initiaitve was launched at the Maritime Safety Committee MSC in to evaluate current regulations and to ascertain whether they are adequate for some of the colossal cruise ships being built today.
While there could be no doubt that such ships were being built, designed and operated in compliance with applicable IMO standards, the time had come for IMO to undertake a holistic consideration of safety issues pertaining to passenger ships, with particular emphasis on large cruise ships. The concern was not whether such ships complied with the SOLAS requirements applicable to ships of their category, but whether SOLAS and, to the extent applicable, the Load Line Convention requirements, several of which had been drafted before some of the large ships in question had been built, duly addressed all the safety aspects of their operation - in particular, in emergency situations.
Also, whether the training requirements of the STCW Convention relating to personnel operating large cruise ships were in need of any review or clarification. The working group on large passenger-ship safety began work at the MSC in November-December , with input from the cruise industry and Member States who have carried out studies into large passenger ships and areas of potential concern.
The work reflects IMO's proactive stance on future legislation and includes the use of tools such as formal safety assessment, used in other areas of IMO's work such as bulk carrier safety. In the course of an event, or in its aftermath, social and public behavior undergoes important changes. This results in new organizational responsibilities for the public sector. Hazard information and education programs can improve public preparedness and social conduct during a disaster.
Hazard awareness planning is concerned about improving the ability of a particular area, region, or nation to respond to natural disasters. Disaster preparedness promotes the development of a system for monitoring known hazards, a warning system, emergency and evacuation plans, emergency routes, and the formulation of educational programs for public officials and professionals.
Many Latin America and Caribbean countries are developing and adopting emergency plans in order to identify and effectively mobilize human and national resources in case of a disaster. Disaster Rescue and Relief After a natural calamity, local residents usually undertake the first relief activities. However, their efforts must usually be complemented with those of national or regional authorities. The keystones of post-disaster relief are the preparation of lifelines or critical facilities for emergency response, training, disaster rehearsals, and the identification and allocation of local and external resources.
Relief activities are affected by broad-scale planning decisions, but they are not a part of the mainstream national and regional planning processes. Although relief and disaster preparedness receive the most resources at the international, national, regional, and local levels, cost-effective mitigation measures are not adequately considered.
This lack of forethought exacerbates the effects of natural disasters in terms of loss of life and property. Meanwhile, natural disasters continue to occur worldwide, and the number of people affected is increasing faster than the population growth rate.
Post-Disaster Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Concurrent with or immediately after relief activities, post-disaster rehabilitation is carried out to restore the normal functions of public services, business, and commerce, to repair housing and other structures, and to return production facilities to operation. However, mitigation is often ignored in this phase: rehabilitation proceeds without any measures to reduce the chances of the same impact if the event happens again.
In developing countries, road systems that are flooded or blocked by landslides year after year are commonly rebuilt at the same site and with similar design specifications. In considering reconstruction costs, existing development policies and sectoral projects need to be reevaluated. In many cases, they are no longer appropriate or do not coincide with the best use of natural resources. For this reason, the natural hazard management process must examine any changes in the resources, goals, objectives, and products of development plans and incorporate these factors into subsequent planning activities.
Education and Training Activities Education and training, both formal and informal, prepare people at all levels to participate in hazard management.
Universities, research centers, and international development assistance agencies play the leading formal role in preparing individuals in a variety of skill levels such as natural hazards assessment, risk reduction, and natural phenomena prediction. These activities are also carried out by operational entities such as ministries of agriculture, transportation, public works, and defense.
Informal learning can be delivered through brochures, booklets, and audio and video tapes prepared by national and international agencies involved in disaster preparedness and mitigation programs, and through the national media. Additionally, courses, workshops, conferences, and seminars organized by national and international disaster assistance agencies disseminate great amounts of information on natural hazard management strategies.
Finally, direct observation after a disaster has proved to be one of the most effective means of learning. Post-disaster investigations describe the qualitative and quantitative aspects of natural hazards, often improving on information produced by modelling and conjecture by indicating areas where development should be extremely limited or should not take place.
A direct outcome of the learning process is 1 the improvement of policies and program actions, building codes, standards, construction and design skills; 2 the development of legislation to mandate the adoption of these policies and the strengthening or creation of new disaster organizations; 3 the improvement of the key logistical aspects of disaster prevention, such as communication and warning systems; and 4 the establishment of community and resource organizations to confront future disasters.
Preliminary Mission: Designing the Study b. Phase I: Development Diagnosis c. Implementing the Study Recommendations. Integrated development planning is a multidisciplinary, multisectoral approach to planning.
Issues in the relevant economic and social sectors are brought together and analyzed vis-a-vis the needs of the population and the problems and opportunities of the associated natural resource base. A key element of this process is the generation of investment projects, defined as an investment of capital to create assets capable of generating a stream of benefits over time. A project may be independent or part of a package of projects comprising an integrated development effort.
The process of generating projects is called the project cycle. This process proceeds from the establishment of development policies and strategies, the identification of project ideas, and the preparation of project profiles through prefeasibility and feasibility analyses and, for large projects, design studies to final project approval, financing, implementation, and operation.
While the process is more or less standardized, each agency develops its own version. Because the process is cyclical, activities relating to more than one stage can take place at the same time. The main elements of the process are shown in Figure , and a synthesis of the activities and products of each stage is shown in Figure The relationships of the integrated development planning process, the hazard management process, and the project cycle are summarized in Figure Generally, planners depend on the science and engineering community to provide the required information for natural hazard assessments.
If the information available is adequate, the planner may decide to make an assessment. If it is not adequate, the planner usually decides that the time and cost of generating more would be excessive, and the assessment is not made.
While the information available on hurricanes and geologic hazards is often adequate for a preliminary evaluation, the information on desertification, flooding, and landslide hazards rarely is. The OAS has developed fast, low-cost methodologies that make these evaluations possible in the context of a development study. The differences in treating the various hazards in each stage of the process are highlighted in the following discussion.
Preliminary Mission: Designing the Study The first step in the process of technical assistance for an integrated development planning study is to send a "preliminary mission" to consult with officials in the interested country. Experience has shown that this joint effort of OAS staff and local planners and decision-makers is frequently the most critical event in the entire study.
They take action to: - Determine whether the study area is affected by one or more natural hazards. For example, the National Environmental Study of Uruguay conducted by the OAS with financial support from the Inter-American Development Bank determined in the preliminary mission that natural hazards were an important environmental problem, and consequently an assessment of all significant hazards, to be conducted by reviewing existing information, was programmed for Phase I.
If they are not, determine what additional data collection, hazard assessment, remote sensing, or specialized equipment will be needed for the next stage of the study. For example, in preliminary missions in Dominica, Saint Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, landslides were determined to be a serious problem, and landslide assessments were included in the work plan for Phase I. If so, establish coordination. Which ones? What is the social cost of a decision of this nature?
How can such an outcome be avoided? How and by whom can the assessment information be summarized for project formulation and action plan preparation? How will this information be collected? Phase I: Development Diagnosis In Phase I, the team analyzes the study region and arrives at detailed estimates of development potentials and problems of the region and selected target areas.
From this analysis a multisectoral development strategy and a set of project profiles are prepared for review by government decision-makers. Phase I also includes a detailed assessment of natural hazards and the elements at risk in highly vulnerable areas which facilitates the early introduction of non-structural mitigation measures.
During this phase the team will: - Prepare a base map. Identify cause-and-effect relationships between natural events and between natural events and human activity. In the hilly Chixoy region of Guatemala, for example, it was found that inappropriate road construction methods were causing landslides and that landslides, in turn, were the main problem of road maintenance.
Determine the important linkages between the study region and neighboring regions. For hurricanes and geologic hazards, the existing information will probably suffice; if the information on geologic hazards is inadequate, an outside agency should be asked to conduct an analysis.
For flooding, landslides, and desertification, the planning team itself should be able to supplement the existing information and prepare analyses. Prepare lifeline maps, hazard zoning studies, and multiple hazard maps as required. The study of the vulnerability of the Ecuadorian agriculture sector to natural hazards and of ways to reduce the vulnerability of lifelines in St.
Kitts and Nevis, for example, both generated project ideas which could be studied at the prefeasibility level in Phase II. The study of the Paraguayan Chaco included flood and desertification assessments and multiple-hazard zoning. The execution of these hazard-related activities did not distort the time or cost of the development diagnosis.
Phase II begins after the government decides which projects merit further study. The team now makes prefeasibility and feasibility analyses of the projects selected. Refined estimates are made of benefits income stream, increases in production, generation of employment, etc. Valuative criteria are applied, including net present value, internal rate of return, cost-benefit ratio, and repayment possibilities.
Finally, the team assembles packages of investment projects for priority areas and prepares an action plan. More detail on this phase is given in the section on Hazard Mitigation Strategies for Development Projects, but broadly speaking the team must: - Examine the human activities that could contribute to natural hazards e.
For example, the multimillion-dollar program for the development of the metropolitan area of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, featured landslide mitigation components. If not, will additional assessment activities take place within or outside of the planning study? How much would they cost? Are they economically, socially, and politically feasible?
Who will carry out the mitigation measures identified in the project? How and by whom will risk information be incorporated into study documents? Implementing the Study Recommendations The fourth stage of the development planning process helps implement the proposals by preparing the institutional, financial, and technical mechanisms necessary for successful execution and operation.
Efforts made to consider hazards in previous stages will be lost unless mitigation measures are closely adhered to during the projects' execution. Either the planning agency or the implementing agency should: - Ensure that suitable hazard management mechanisms have been included in all investment projects; provide for monitoring of construction to insure compliance with regulations, and for ongoing monitoring to ensure long-term compliance with project design. Point out hazardous situations for which the study did not propose vulnerability reduction measures.
Use products of the studies photos, maps, charts, etc. Use personnel who participated in the studies in public meetings to promote the concept of vulnerability reduction. Advantages of Integrated Development Planning for Natural Hazard Management Even though integrated development planning and hazard management are usually treated in Latin America and the Caribbean as parallel processes that intermix little with each other, it is clear that they should be able to operate more effectively in coordination, since their goals are the same-the protection of investment and improved human well-being-and they deal with similar units of space.
Some of the advantages of such coordination are the following: - There is a greater possibility that vulnerability reduction measures will be implemented if they are part of a development package. The possibility increases if they are part of specific development projects rather than stand-alone disaster mitigation proposals. Furthermore, including vulnerability reduction components in a development project can improve the cost-benefit of the overall project if risk considerations are included in the evaluation.
A dramatic example is the case study on vulnerability reduction for the energy sector in Costa Rica. For example, geographic information systems created for hazard management purposes can serve more general planning needs. In the Jamaica study of the vulnerability of the tourism sector to natural hazards, for example, solutions were proposed for most of the problems identified, but no economically viable solutions were found for others.
The industry and the national emergency preparedness agency were so warned. For example, when a planning team determines that a volcano with short-term periodicity located close to a population center is not being monitored, it can recommend a change in the priorities of the agency responsible. A clear example of this situation was the landslide mitigation components of the metropolitan Tegucigalpa study: the principal beneficiaries were the thousands of the city's poor living in the most hazard-prone areas.
Energy in Costa Rica 2. Tourism in Jamaica 3. Agriculture in Ecuador 4. Strategies Derived from the Case Studies. The managers of public and private sectoral agencies share a concern about the vulnerability of their sectors to hazardous events: What hazards threaten which services? Where are the weak links? How much damage might be done? How would the damage affect sector investment, income, employment, and foreign currency earnings?
What is the impact of losing x service in y city for z days? What investment in mitigation would resolve that problem? In the experience of the OAS the sectors that can benefit most from vulnerability assessments are energy, transport, tourism, and agriculture, since these sectors typify problems of disaster impact faced by developing countries. Presented below are case studies of hazard assessments for the energy sector, the tourism sector, and the agriculture sector.
The section ends with some strategies for conducting such assessments for selected economic sectors. The study first defined the nature of possible impacts. These included: - Loss of infrastructure; associated investment losses - Loss of income to the sector from forgone energy sales - Effect on the production of goods and services; associated losses of employment income - Loss of foreign exchange - Negative impact on the quality of life It was clear that the study would have to cover not only the energy subsectors, but also the service and economic sectors that could affect or be affected by energy supply.
Thus it included the electric power system, the hydrocarbon system, railroads, roads, telecommunications, the metropolitan aqueduct, and the major economic production sectors. Existing information was analyzed for earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, hurricanes, flooding, drought, and erosion. To evaluate the vulnerability of each facility, the study used two methods simultaneously: field examination and the preparation of a geographic information system which could overlay each hazard with each energy and service system.
Figure shows one of the CIS overlays: landslide threats to transmission lines. Matrices prepared to show impacts were rated as follows: - No impact - Potential threat, major or minor - Confirmed threat, major or minor A rapid examination of the threats yielded a number of serious problems. The confirmed major impacts caused by each hazard in each sector are shown in Figure The most important problems were studied in greater detail and actions to deal with them were recommended.
Some examples follow. The probability of such an event is low, but the magnitude of the catastrophe is so great it has to be planned for. The report recommended contingency plans for emergency generation and the establishment of new power plants outside the Arenal system.
The multiple hazards make the probability of occurrence moderate, and the loss of any of these components would cut off power from the Arenal system to the central region. The report recommended building an alternate transmission line that would bypass the four components.
Since having the substation out of commission for a long time would be a major catastrophe for the region and rerouting the railroad would be too expensive, the report recommended equipping a West Coast port with facilities for handling a substitute supply which could be trucked to San Jose.
The Government found the recommendations valid and is now seeking financing for feasibility studies of the most critical ones. It is noteworthy that so many serious problems could be identified in a three-month study and, more importantly, that many were amenable to mitigation by relatively modest investments. Tourism in Jamaica The geographic and climatic setting of the Caribbean and the siting of tourism projects on or near the beaches combine to make Caribbean tourism especially vulnerable to disruption from natural disasters.
In the island countries hurricanes are the most damaging hazard, but land-based flooding, landslides, earthquakes, and wildfires also exact a toll. The indirect damage was much greater.
The temporary closing of hotels for repairs meant fewer visitors to the island, causing other indirect effects such as loss of income for the national airline and reduction in employment and the purchase of local goods and services. The vulnerability of the tourism industry is not confined to its own capital stock, as was demonstrated by the Jamaican experience. Damage to roads, utilities, airports, harbors, and shopping centers also affected the industry.
Conscious of the need to minimize damage from future events, the Government of Jamaica requested OAS technical cooperation in preparing an assessment of the vulnerability of the tourism sector to natural hazards and recommending mitigation actions.
The assessment disclosed that much of the damage to tourism facilities, as to other buildings, was due to lack of attention to detail in construction and maintenance, particularly in roof construction. Roof sheeting was poorly interlocked.
Tie-downs of roof structures were inadequate. Nail heads were rusted off. Timber strength was reduced by termites, and metal strength by corrosion. Much glass was needlessly blown out because of faulty installation and poor design criteria, but also because windows were not protected from flying debris. Drains clogged with debris caused excessive surface runoff, resulting in erosion and scouring around buildings.
Local water shortages developed because the lack of back-up generators prevented pumping. Although a major contributor to the damage, faulty building practices and maintenance deficiencies are easy to correct: it was calculated that proper attention to these matters would have increased the cost of construction less than 1 percent. Long-term mitigation measures were also identified. The study recommended the protection of beach vegetation, sand dunes, mangroves, and coral reefs, all of which help to protect the land from wave and wind action.
New construction sites should be evaluated for susceptibility to hazards. Setback distance from the shore should be enforced, and the quality of sewage outfall should be maintained to protect live coral formations. In short, the preliminary study, conducted in one month, identified a number of possible actions that would substantially reduce the impact of future hurricanes and other natural hazards.
The preliminary analysis indicated that many of these actions would have a high cost-benefit ratio. Subsequently, Jamaica requested IDB financing to undertake feasibility analyses of these proposals and to implement them. The ultimate objective of this work is for the tourism sector to arrive at a "practical and effective loss reduction strategy and program in response to the risks posed by natural disasters to the industry.
Agriculture in Ecuador In Ecuador, as in most Latin American and Caribbean countries, agriculture is one of the most important sources of income, employment, investments, and foreign exchange earnings. However, it is perhaps the most vulnerable and least protected sector in terms of infrastructure and institutional support to cope with natural hazards. Furthermore, besides generating inflationary pressures on domestic prices, the disaster had a significant impact on the balance of payments due to the loss of export crops and the need to import basic food products to compensate for domestic production losses ECLAC, In , the Ministry of Agriculture asked the OAS to assist in evaluating the vulnerability of the agricultural sector to natural hazards and identifying appropriate mitigation strategies to reduce it to acceptable levels.
These strategies would be identified as project ideas or project profiles, some of which would be selected by local officials to be further studied and evaluated to determine their economic and technical viability.
The study, conducted at the national level, first defined 14 of the most important crops, grouped in three categories: basic food crops, strategic crops, and export crops. Key infrastructure support elements for the production, processing, storage, transportation, and distribution of agricultural products were also defined and geographically located.
This information was overlaid in a geographic information system GIS; see Chapter 5 with information on drought, erosion, floods, landslides, volcanic eruptions, and seismic hazards. By relating province-level socioeconomic data to potential affected areas, the study was able to determine the impacts of natural events in terms of sectoral income, employment, investments, foreign exchange earnings, and national food security.
On the basis of these criteria, 49 different situations were selected as the most critical. It was found, for example, that erosion hazards in Carchi Province would affect in the medium to long run 11, ha of the potato-growing area, which accounts for more than 43 percent of the national production and for 40 percent and 80 percent, respectively, of the employment and income produced by the sector in the province.
The most serious problems according to each of the five criteria were identified, and policy options that would achieve the best gains were established. It was determined, for example, that policies oriented to avoid unemployment should seek to mitigate flood hazards in Guayas Province and erosion hazards in Tungurahua Province.
To protect foreign exchange earnings, the most effective actions would be to protect banana production in El Oro Province against drought hazards and to mitigate flood hazards in Guayas Province, especially in areas used for coffee and banana production. Possible mitigation strategies were also identified as part of the study and planned or on-going programs and projects in the Ministry of Agriculture and other institutions were identified as suitable for carrying out some of these mitigation strategies and more detailed studies.
A report describing the major findings and recommendations was prepared and submitted to the government for review. Strategies Derived from the Case Studies The following observations are common to many sectors.
Of course, many additional strategies apply to individual sector studies. Sectors are useful units of analysis for examining hazard assessment and vulnerability reduction issues. Sectors are recognizable and legitimate program subjects.
Banks make loans on the basis of sectors. A sectoral approach fits the organizational structure of both international finance agencies and national governments. The knowledge and experience of most technical professionals is built around a sectoral approach. Information for the development diagnosis Phase I of an integrated development planning study is collected and analyzed on a sectoral basis. Sectoral studies need not be restricted to economic sectors: urban and rural sectors and the poor also make valid units of study.
Vulnerability reduction measures can be cost-effective, either as stand-alone projects or. Including such measures can improve the cost-benefit ratio of investment projects. Sector vulnerability studies are a new approach which can be considered for inclusion in development diagnosis Phase I studies.
Initial national-level studies allow for a quick and low-cost assessment of policies and projects at a profile level that can be examined in greater detail later. Sectoral studies reveal previously unrecognized linkages between disasters and development. Often a sector is unaware of its role in the lifeline or critical facilities network. In many cases it has no strategy for dealing with abnormal situations resulting from any exogenous event. The complex interrelationships among the components of some sectors make it difficult to cope with the impact of a natural event.
This is particularly true when the sector is more concerned with one set of components, such as the production or generation of power, than with another set such as transmission, distribution, and storage.
Furthermore, sectors usually do not have an adequate understanding of the effect a curtailment of service can have on other sectors. A sector may have to select between competing objectives to arrive at a vulnerability reduction strategy. Criteria that define those competing objectives include investment in the sector, income stream, export earnings, employment, and sector security.
The cost of a component may be disproportionate to the impact of its loss as measured by one of these criteria. Technical Cooperation Agencies 2. Convincing Financing Agencies. The different categories of development assistance agencies technical cooperation agencies, bilateral and multilateral lending agencies each have a potential role in supporting the assessment and mitigation of natural hazards.
Technical cooperation agencies such as the OAS support institution-building, research, planning, and project formulation as requested.
Their financial impact and their political or technical leverage are limited. But their contribution to natural hazard assessment and mitigation in regional and sectoral planning, project identification, and prefeasibility studies is important. Most bilateral funds are concessional, and financial returns are less important to these agencies than to the development banks. They can exert considerable leverage over projects they fund.
The multilateral development banks, mainly the World Bank and the regional development banks, fund development projects but are also increasingly involved in sector policies, institutional strengthening, program lending, and structural adjustment. The dominant factors that shape their lending programs are the financial and economic soundness of an investment and the creditworthiness of the borrowing institutions. Within these parameters they can significantly influence hazard mitigation issues.
The conditions for increasing national and international attention to disaster mitigation issues may be stated as follows: - The more developed a country's planning institutions and processes, the more easily natural hazards assessment and mitigation issues can be adopted.
Technical Cooperation Agencies For technical cooperation agencies such as the OAS, the activities that should be included in a strategy for promoting natural hazards assessment and mitigation are: - Support for national planning institutions. Unless they have the institutional capacity to incorporate natural hazards information into the planning process on an inter-sectoral basis, governments are not likely to show any enthusiasm about looking at individual investment projects from this perspective.
By initiating natural hazards assessments on a pilot basis, it is possible to demonstrate how to do them and what mitigation measures can be proposed, and thereby generate further demand when governments request project funding from donors. Once the information necessary for natural hazard assessments is available, its implications for individual investment projects become difficult to ignore.
In the aftermath of disasters it is easier than it would otherwise be to interest governments and development assistance agencies in natural hazards assessment and mitigation.
By building natural hazards assessment into the planning of the agriculture, energy, housing, tourism, transportation, and other sectors, it should be possible to focus attention on hazards in relation to various types of projects before specific investments are identified. Estimating the benefits of avoiding direct losses from natural hazards and the costs of appropriate non-structural mitigation measures will make it easier to examine their true importance in individual investment projects.
An awareness of the investment losses and repair costs to governments and the private sector, and the distribution of these costs and damages, is likely to increase sensitivity to the issue among all concerned.
Examples of relevant experiences-liability and insurance schemes for investments, property rights designed to create incentives for hazard mitigation, subsidies for mitigation measures, institutional responsibility for coordinating disaster relief with hazard assessment and mitigation, etc.
The OAS has initiated programs in all these activity areas though direct technical cooperation, training, applied research, and participation in international conferences and workshops.
But the need for such activities is much greater than present resources allow. Financing agencies must also become more involved. A Change in Context b.
Incentives for Analysis c. Assignment of Accountability for Losses. A strategy to promote natural hazards assessment and mitigation must also find means of inducing the cooperation of the agencies that actually fund the investment projects. There are three elements that may offer this inducement: 1 a change in the context in which the donors perceive the governments and collaborating technical cooperation agencies to be addressing natural hazard assessment and mitigation issues; 2 incentives for analysis; and 3 the assignment of accountability for losses.
A Change in Context Changing the context in which lending and donor agencies perceive natural hazard assessment and mitigation to be taking place includes most of the activities that the OAS is already promoting: assisting governments in regional planning, pilot natural hazards assessments, assistance for information systems, increasing the quality of project identification, and building the appropriate mitigation measures into pre-investment activities.
Further development of these activities raises three strategic questions: What can be done that is most cost-effective in terms of improving both the commitment and the technical and institutional capacity for hazard assessment in a country?
What outputs can be generated that are most likely to appeal to donors and therefore bridge the gap between hazard assessment and project preparation? What cooperative mechanisms can be developed between the technical assistance and donor agencies that will help reach the first two goals? In response to the first question, implementation of the following ideas seems necessary: - Focus on priority hazards.
Efforts should be concentrated on assessing hazards that are sufficiently urgent to generate the necessary cooperation. Trade-offs must be made between the need for specific information and broad research interests. Losses in some sectors are likely to have greater immediate significance to governments and economic interests than in others, and it seems prudent to try to generate institutional support for attention to these.
The burden of data collection and management often consumes all available technical and institutional capacity and resources, leaving none for decision-making and implementation.
Information systems should reflect realistic priorities for hazards and the development activities that are affected. As to the second question, the following guides should be used: - Early identification and integration of mitigation issues.
Mitigation measures built into projects from the earliest preparation stages are more likely to receive adequate review. For certain types of projects such solutions are less likely to be rejected if it can be shown that situations to which they are applicable are common. Confidence in hazard mitigation is higher if governments appear committed to carrying it out. As to the third question, the following ideas are suggested: - Pooling of resources.
Donor and technical assistance agencies should make their professional staff available for joint missions at varying stages of the project cycle. Technical assistance agency representatives should periodically present case-study and other training material on the design and implementation of natural hazard assessment and mitigation techniques in project formulation taken from real field experiences.
In turn, as their capability in this area improves, the donor agency staffs should present their policies, programs, and project evaluation criteria. Natural hazard assessment and mitigation should be routinely included in staff development and training programs in conjunction with project formulation activities.
Incentives for Analysis The project staff of a development financing agency will resist any requirement to incorporate natural hazards into project preparation and analysis unless it fits into the existing review mechanisms and appraisal methods.
Various ways to promote this consistency exist: - Provide reusable information. Agencies should set guidelines to alert their staffs to specific hazards, and give them examples of appropriate mitigation measures and implementation requirements. This approach depends on the institution of mechanisms to ensure that the guidelines are followed routinely.
Hazards will inevitably be one of many factors to be taken into account, and there is a danger that they will be overlooked if they are not made part of the standard format. Design standards, insurance schemes, diversification of crops, feasibility of hazard-resistant crops or designs are examples. Project staffs are more likely to become enthusiastic about positive project opportunities than about review mechanisms.
This makes sense to the extent that decisions are made on the basis of economic returns, that the information on which to base the economic calculations is available, and that the analysis is geared towards improving project design. It is hard to generate support for a new activity unless it can be justified on the basis of financial and economic returns. From this point of view, it is an advantage to be able to show that hazard mitigation can save financial and economic costs in the conventional cost-benefit framework.
This is especially important for project staff responsible for hazard-prone regions and sectoral advisers responsible for hazard-sensitive sectors. Training, cooperation, and publicity can contribute to making project staff more aware of the issue. This, probably more than any other factor, can offset the institutional and financial resistance to hazard assessment and mitigation on the part of governments and the development financing agencies alike.
Assignment of Accountability for Losses The concern of development financing agencies for natural hazard assessment and mitigation depends on the degree to which projects they help plan or fund suffer losses from natural disasters.
There are number of ways to assign accountability: - Evaluate losses from natural hazards not only in the context of the creditworthiness of the government or a particular sector, but also of the donor's program area and its project design and loan repayment performance.
Earthquakes New York: W. Freeman and Company, Burton, I. Hays, W. Facing Geologic and Hydrologic Hazards. Geological Survey, King, J.
Natsios, A. Petak, W. Development Diagnosis. Project Formulation and Preparation of Action Plan. Receipt and analysis of request for cooperation. Diagnosis of the region. Project formulation pre-feasibility or feasibility and evaluation.
Assistance for specific programs and projects. Assistance in incorporating proposed investments into the national budget. Advisory services for private sector actions. Preliminary Mission. Support to executing agencies. Support in the inter- institutional coordination. Relation to national plans, strategies and priorities.
Development strategies.
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