Unbreakable

'Economic losses from natural disasters totaled $92 billion in 2015.'
Such statements, all too commonplace, assess the severity of disasters by no
other measure than the damage inflicted on buildings, infrastructure, and
agricultural production. But $1 in losses does not mean the same thing to a rich
person that it does to a poor person; the gravity of a $92 billion loss depends on
who experiences it. By focusing on aggregate losses—the traditional approach to
disaster risk—we restrict our consideration to how disasters affect those wealthy
enough to have assets to lose in the first place, and largely ignore the plight of
poor people.
This report moves beyond asset and production losses and shifts its attention to
how natural disasters affect people’s well-being. Disasters are far greater threats
to well-being than traditional estimates suggest. This approach provides a more
nuanced view of natural disasters than usual reporting, and a perspective that
takes fuller account of poor people’s vulnerabilities.
Poor people suffer only a fraction of economic losses caused by disasters, but
they bear the brunt of their consequences.
Understanding the disproportionate vulnerability of poor people also makes the
case for setting new intervention priorities to lessen the impact of natural disasters
on the world’s poor, such as expanding financial inclusion, disaster risk and health
insurance, social protection and adaptive safety nets, contingent finance and
reserve funds, and universal access to early warning systems.
Efforts to reduce disaster risk and poverty go hand in hand. Because disasters
impoverish so many, disaster risk management is inseparable from poverty
reduction policy, and vice versa.
As climate change magnifies natural hazards, and because protection
infrastructure alone cannot eliminate risk, a more resilient population has never
been more critical to breaking the cycle of disaster-induced poverty.