Poverty, Inequality and Disaster Risk Reduction in the Caribbean

Poverty, Inequality and Disaster Risk Reduction in the Caribbean Peta-Anne Baker ABSTRACT The January 12 earthquake in Haiti offered a stark reminder of the extent to which the countries of Central America and the Caribbean are vulnerable to a range of natural hazards, including earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, tsunamis, landslides, volcanoes, and drought. In this paper I show that the countries with the highest levels of not just poverty but also inequality tend to have the highest levels of loss of life and physical and economic destruction in cases of natural hazards. I argue that social workers need to adopt a political economy perspective in their approach to disaster management and pay as much attention to social administration and policy advocacy as they do to the more common relief coordination and mental health interventions. I recommend that disaster management become a field of practice for social workers especially in small island developing states and discuss the knowledge and skills needed in the field. Keywords: small island developing states – Caribbean – OECS − Haiti − disaster risk reduction – advocacy – vulnerability The year 2010 has been characterised as having had some of the worst disaster events in recent times. Almost 300,000 persons were killed, another 208 million had their lives severely disrupted in events which ranged from the earthquake in Haiti in which an estimated 225,000 people were killed, to a heat wave in Russia in which another 56,000 people died, and floods in Pakistan which killed 2,000 people and displaced an estimated six million The Caribbean Journal of Social Work Vol. 8 & 9 / December 2010, pp. 11–31 12 Caribbean Journal of Social Work others. Damage arising from these events is estimated at US$109 billion (United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction 2011). Economic losses attributed to natural disasters at the global level have increased almost ten times in the last 30 years: Losses estimated at US$75.5 billion in the 1960s became an estimated US$659.9 billion in the 1990s. Some 1.5 million people have been killed in natural disasters between 1980 and 2000, and approximately 184 people die daily from natural disasters. United Nations sources indicate that despite the fact that only 11% of the people who are exposed to natural hazards live in poor countries, 53% of the deaths arising from these events occur in these countries (UNDP 2004: Foreword, 9−10). In addition to the obvious and immediate consequences for individuals and nations, the negative impact of natural hazards increases the likelihood of countries not achieving the objectives of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). On Tuesday January 12, 2010 at 4.53 p.m. the unsuspecting people of southern Haiti had their world literally turned upside down as an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale initiated wave upon wave of death and destruction on the capital city Port au Prince and surrounding towns. The estimates are that well over 200,000 (some suggest that the figure is closer to 300,000) persons were killed and another million Haitians were made homeless as a result of the earthquake. The earthquake effectively suspended the operations of the Haitian government as several of its most senior members were killed and the majority of public offices, including the Presidential Palace were destroyed. In the days and weeks that followed, all across the Caribbean, people mobilised assistance in a massive outpouring of support for a historically disregarded group of the region’s citizens. However despite this outpouring of popular support, the governments of the Caribbean ultimately emerged as yet another group of institutions which seemed unable to do more than provide the most limited support to the Haitian people and the task of helping a government in disarray repair its tattered systems fell once again to the United States, which already had a substantial military presence in the country. (The US military has been present in Haiti since a 2004 de facto coup removed the elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the United States and a United Nations sponsored peace-keeping force installed an interim regime. Human rights observers note that the primary goal of these forces has been to dismantle Aristide’s Lavalas party and buttress the US approved administrations that have since governed the country (Hallward 2010). Poverty, Inequality and Disaster Risk Reduction 13 The earthquake in Haiti drew attention to the extent of the Caribbean’s exposure to natural hazards and highlighted the tenuous nature of the existence of large sections of the region’s societies. The level of destruction of public and private buildings focused attention on the importance of having in place effective disaster response mechanisms, the need for other systems such as those which would formulate and enforce building codes, as well as those which could support the people’s own efforts to re-build their communities and their nation. However the continuing state of disrepair, indeed the failure to even pursue the removal of rubble from the earthquake, have lent credence to the view that these measures alone are not enough to prevent a recurrence of the devastation experienced by the people of Haiti. It has become painfully clear that underlying structures, including the state of governance of the country is integral to the dynamic process of reconstruction and development. This article examines the emerging evidence that the extent of harm experienced by a country and its people is not simply a matter of the scale or type of natural hazard or the extent of poverty in the affected country. It discusses how a range of factors, especially those related to the extent of inequality and its consequent impact on the distribution of power and influence in a country, is now recognised as having implications for the amount of damage and death caused by a hazardous event. Indeed these factors help to determine whether the hazard in question actually becomes a disaster: exceeding the capacity for response and coping on the part of local institutions and requiring external assistance to initiate recovery and reconstruction. It is in this context that I argue that the social work profession needs to become more involved in a disaster risk reduction process which pays attention to structural interventions such as strengthening community and institutional capacity for advocacy and participation in development policy formulation at local, national, regional and international levels. I propose that in small island developing states such as we have in the Caribbean, which are at risk of the greatest harm from natural and man-made hazards, disaster risk reduction needs to be recognised as an important field of social work practice and identify elements of a curriculum for training workers in this domain. Natural disasters in Central America and the Caribbean Geography and history are two of a number of factors which render the countries of Central America and the Caribbean vulnerable to a range of natural hazards, including earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, tsunamis, landslides, volcanic eruption and drought. Natural and man-made hazards 14 Caribbean Journal of Social Work worsen poverty and give rise to income, gender and other inequalities in the region. In the last 10 to 15 years, it is estimated that some 30% of the populations of Central America and the Caribbean have been affected by disasters. In Nicaragua for example, the proportion of children working rather than attending school increased from 7.5% to 15.6% in households affected by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 (Baez and Santos 2007). Between 1998 and 2004, there were approximately 10 major weather related disastrous events in the English-speaking Caribbean which have had a significant social and economic impact on these countries. In Jamaica in 2004, Hurricane Ivan resulted in damage valued at J$35 billion [approximately US$500 million](Jackson 2005,1). Hurricane Ivan also destroyed 90% of infrastructure, valued at US$800m in Grenada. In 2008 Hurricane Gustav hit Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. In Cuba, damages amounted to US$5 billion and some 450,000 households were affected. Jamaica had damages amounting to US$4.5 billion to roads and infrastructure, 12 persons died and over 800 persons were affected. The Haitian death toll from Gustav was 85 persons with over 73,000 persons being affected. (Unless otherwise noted, disaster-related data has been extracted from the EM-DAT database, at the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disaster (CRED) International Disaster Database found at www.emdat.be.) Between 1990 and 2009, a dozen Central American and Caribbean countries with borders on the Caribbean Sea were affected by 221 natural disasters caused by earthquakes, floods or storms. The countries that have been most frequently affected are Haiti (47 events), Cuba (38), Honduras (31) and the Dominican Republic (30). In the English-speaking Caribbean, Jamaica, with 18 events, has experienced the most frequent negative impact of these hazards with Belize (11) coming second. The CRED database reveals that total cost of the damage caused by these events amounted to US $23.56 billion dollars with Cuba (US$11bn), Honduras (US$4.4bn), the Dominican Republic (US$2.5bn) and Jamaica (US$1.4bn) being the four countries with the highest costs. These figures however do not necessarily provide the best indicator of the impact of a disaster since they are influenced by the levels of urbanisation and industrialization of these countries, due to urban and industrial infrastructure attracting higher valuations than rural and agricultural environments. This is in part the reason why greater significance tends to be attached to the number of persons affected by and the actual number of deaths arising from an event. In this regard, during the period under review, although many Poverty, Inequality and Disaster Risk Reduction 15 more people were affected by disasters in Cuba, it is Honduras and Haiti that experienced much greater loss of life (see Table 1). In addition, bearing in mind that the definition of the ‘number of persons affected’ includes persons who have been evacuated (CRED), it is likely that the Cuban statistic for this factor will have been influenced by that country’s use of mandatory evacuation as a harm reduction strategy. In Cuba’s case therefore, one could argue that evacuation was a positive sign rather than the negative association that is implied in its use in the database where evacuation is more often a result of people’s homes being damaged or destroyed. Table 1: Natural hazard impacts1 in selected Central American and Caribbean countries 1990−2009 Country Belize Total number of events 11 Total cost of damage (US$bn) Total affected2 (‘000) Total deaths3 .55 212 64 Cuba 38 11 11,338 128 Dominican Republic 30 2.54 1,198 1,362 Guatemala 22 1.74 938 2,076 Haiti 47 .33 2,579 7,995 Honduras 31 4.40 3,395 15,431 Jamaica 18 1.42 982 83 Selected OECS4 20 .15 735 59 Notes: 1. Earthquake, flood, storm/hurricane. 2. Cumulative total of persons injured, made homeless or requiring immediate assistance (including persons who have been displaced or evacuated) 3. Total of number of dead and persons missing and presumed dead. 4. Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States - an intergovernmental association of seven member countries and two associated states established in 1981 to facilitate enhanced governance and policy coordination among several small states in the English-speaking Caribbean. See Table 2 for countries selected. Source: Compiled from EM-DAT: CRED International Disaster Database. Retrieved November 17, 2010. Notwithstanding the significant cost of the damage caused mainly by storms and floods in Cuba, the total number of deaths experienced over the 20 year period is substantially lower than that for other countries in the region. In fact the average number of deaths per event in Cuba (3.37) is the 16 Caribbean Journal of Social Work second lowest in the region. Only the Eastern Caribbean islands of Dominica, Grenada, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines, with a combined average of 2.95 deaths per event, have lower rates of deaths per event. Details of the impact of natural hazards in these micro-states are provided in Table 2. Table 2: Natural hazard impacts in selected Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) countries, 1990−2009 Total number of events Total Cost of damage US$ (‘000) Dominica 6 215 8,175 7 Grenada 4 895 62,860 40 St Lucia 5 405 600 5 St Vincent & the Grenadines 5 16 1,830 7 Total 20 1,531 73,465 59 Name of OECS member state Total affected Total deaths Source: Compiled from EM-DAT: CRED International Disaster Database. Retrieved November 17, 2010. The main hazard in all of the countries reviewed is posed by hurricanes, although due to their location on a major fault in the earth’s crust, several countries regularly experience earthquakes and some countries, notably Montserrat, have active volcanoes. In many countries in the region there are also outbreaks of viral and bacterial diseases, such as dengue fever, which satisfy at least one of the CRED criteria for entry into its International Disaster Database. However there have been only nine epidemics in four insular Caribbean countries (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica) between 1990 and 2009, compared with 35 such incidents occurring over the same period in seven countries on the Central American mainland (CRED 2010). The aftermath of a disaster can result in the widespread incidence of malnutrition, homelessness and even epidemics. The 2010 outbreak of cholera in Haiti, a first for that country, although not directly attributable to the recent earthquake, provides immediate and tragic evidence of the way in which a natural hazard can compromise people’s health and increase the fragility of a country’s systems. There are also indirect effects resulting from a disaster such as acute respiratory, infectious or parasitic diseases; an increase in health related expenses and permanent injuries that may cause a fall in or Poverty, Inequality and Disaster Risk Reduction 17 complete cessation of livelihood earning opportunities (Charvériat 2000) at individual and national levels. Causes of disaster Perspectives on the nature and causes of natural disasters have evolved over time. An early and still popular view is that disasters are the products of natural or technological events or a combination thereof. According to this perspective there is little to be done to prevent natural disasters although some measures can be taken to mitigate their worst effects. In this context prevention and mitigation activities belong primarily to the realm of technological enhancement and the implementation of appropriate regulatory policy measures (Shaluf 2007). At the other end of what could be seen as a continuum of perspectives, human intervention and social process are seen as having the greatest significance for the scale and impact of both natural and technological disasters. In this context, even in circumstances as unpredictable as an earthquake, the amount of harm and damage including loss of life is a function of factors as wide ranging as the impact of climate change (Davies, Oswald and Mitchell 2009) and the quality of governance in a society. Humans prefer to make Mother Nature or God the villain but what many people often call “natural” disasters are in fact acts of social injustice perpetuated by government and business on the poor, people of colour [sic], the disabled, the elderly, the homeless, those who are transit dependent and non-drivers—groups least able to withstand such disasters (Bullard 2008, 757). From this perspective, the task of preventing and reducing the negative impact of natural and man-made hazards, would of necessity involve tackling structural inequalities as well as the more recognised prevention and mitigation activities. Although its proponents may not go as far as Bullard in their explanation of the cause and extent of disasters, Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) has emerged in the field of disaster management as an indicator of an evolving appreciation of the dynamic interaction and impact of natural and social forces. Disaster Risk Reduction promotes a more integrated approach to the prevention of and response to natural and man-made disasters. Davies, Oswald and Mitchell (2009) define disaster risk reduction as ‘the development and application of policies, strategies and practices that minimise vulnerabilities, hazards and unfolding disaster impacts throughout a society in the broad context of sustainable development’ (206). 18 Caribbean Journal of Social Work Sources of vulnerability Some discussions of disaster management focus on the issue of risk while others approach the matter of estimating the likely impact of natural and other hazards from the perspective of vulnerability. ‘Vulnerability is different from risk….Whereas risk is about exposure to external hazards over which people have limited control, vulnerability is a measure of capacity to manage such hazards without suffering a long-term, potentially irreversible loss of wellbeing’ (UNDP 2008, 78). It can be argued that given this formulation, the concept of vulnerability is more in keeping with the social work value that everyone has the capacity to act on and change his or her situation. Two early contributors to the use of the concept of vulnerability in the field of disaster management, Anderson and Woodrow proposed that vulnerability be considered as being manifest in three dimensions: the physical/material (natural resources, savings, productive/economic); the social/organizational (forms of organisation, structures and processes of leadership), and the motivational/attitudinal (self-esteem and beliefs about personal and collective efficacy) (Anderson and Woodrow 1989). The logic of their framework was that responses to natural disasters needed to take account of these three dimensions in order to enhance capacity for development. Anderson and Woodrow’s work contributed to the emergence of the capacityvulnerability analytical (CVA) matrix which became a cornerstone of work by organisations such as the International Red Cross. (See Baker [1998] for a case study of the work of a Jamaican organisation which employed a similar approach following Hurricane Gilbert in 1988). While the matrix proved valuable to the work of many NGOs, a number of issues emerged as the CVA or variants thereof came into widespread use. First it was noted that it did not provide a means of evaluating the relative importance of the various factors identified. There was also a risk of users becoming preoccupied with the collection of increasing amounts of descriptive data in an effort to fill all the cells in the matrix which could result in a failure to actually move to action (Cannon, Twigg and Rowell 2003). Arguably an even more significant issue is the absence of a political economy perspective or what in the Philippines has been called ‘Social Investigation and Class Analysis (SICA)’ (Heijmans and Victoria 2001). What this means is that the process of identifying those factors which then reduce the capacity for preventive and restorative action on the part of individuals and communities omits an analysis of some of the most potent forces shaping this capability. A 2002 German government report makes the point that vulnerability ‘is [also] made up of many political-institutional, economic Poverty, Inequality and Disaster Risk Reduction 19 and socio-cultural factors’. (Schmidt, Bloemertz and Macamo 2005, 47). Very often communities are vulnerable to experiencing harm from a natural hazard due to political and institutional arrangements at the societal level. Decisions made about the location of hotels to suit the interests of foreign investors can re-shape shorelines and place communities at risk of flooding for example. These forms of vulnerability which stem from historic patterns of socioeconomic development give rise to the inequitable distribution of risks as well as the capacity to guard against or respond to hazards. A political economy perspective The impacts of natural disasters on society and the environment are substantially greater in developing countries and in underdeveloped sections of developed countries not simply because of absolute differences in socioeconomic status. Poor households are more vulnerable to natural hazards because the poor tend to live without security of tenure in high risk, environmentally sensitive environments. They invariably lack savings and are unable to access the insurance and loans necessary to finance their reconstruction efforts (Jackson 2005). The poor also often lack access to political power and are frequently the objects of political manipulation and patronage rather than the subjects and shapers of their own destinies. Matthew Kahn of Tufts and Stanford Universities has examined the role played by geography, national income and institutions in the number of deaths caused by natural disasters, using data on deaths from natural disasters (the established measure of the impact of a natural hazard) in 57 countries. Interestingly, despite media representations to the contrary, he found that countries in the Americas, Asia and Europe were more prone to experience negative impacts from natural hazards than countries in Africa (Kahn 2003, 19). Kahn also found that an increase in per capita GNP resulted in a statistically significant and substantial decrease in the number of deaths caused by a natural hazard. He observed that the fact that richer nations can more readily protect themselves from shocks could reduce these nations’ willingness to take the steps necessary to reduce their impact on phenomena such as global warming, especially in light of the fact that these actions require fairly large public expenditures and changes in consumption patterns (Kahn 2003, 17). While the protective effect of wealth makes both intuitive and empirical sense, the impact of income inequality is not as readily obvious. Kahn’s examination of this relationship demonstrates that the size of the gap between the rich and the poor as measured by the Gini coefficient exerts a large and statistically significant impact on the number of deaths from natural disaster 20 Caribbean Journal of Social Work (Kahn 2003, 16). Robert Bullard’s historical review of 70 years of disaster response in the southern United States contributes the additional perspective that income inequality is often associated with factors such as race to worsen the impact of natural disasters on Black and other racial or ethnic minority populations. This point is poignantly conveyed in his observation that the post-Hurricane Katrina re-construction of the levee in New Orleans has provided residents in the predominantly white neighbourhood of Lakeview with 5.5 feet more protection from the waters of the Mississippi River and left the Black neighbourhoods exposed to a recurrence of the August 29, 2005 tragedy (Bullard 2008, 777). The implication of these findings is that it is not enough for governments to pursue economic growth. They must address the distribution of the benefits of that growth including the allocation of resources for disaster preparation and response. (Bullard observes that white residents were able to get in their cars and drive away but the more than one-third of New Orleans’ African Americans who did not own a car waited in vain for public transportation when the order to evacuate New Orleans was made (2008, 756).) It also suggests that it could be possible for relatively poor countries, with a more equitable distribution of income to experience fewer shocks, especially deaths from natural disasters than more unequal ones. Data on the extent of poverty and inequality (Table 3) in the countries previously reviewed for the impact of natural hazards lend credence to the thesis of the existence of a relationship (but not a direct one) between inequality and the impact of natural hazards. Based on Khan’s (2003) findings readers should not be surprised to note that inequality is greatest in Honduras and Haiti, whose people also endure substantial harm in natural disasters. Of interest is the fact that although inequality is also high in the small island state of St Vincent and the Grenadines its experience of natural disaster has not been as devastating, at least in terms of the number of deaths. It is beyond the scope of this paper to pursue a complete explanation for this phenomenon. It could possibly be found in some of the other factors, such as institutional capacity and levels of trust and corruption that were identified by Khan (2003) and Escalera, Anbarci and Register (2006), themselves features of the process of governance which has been identified as central to the disaster management process (Battista and Bass 2004; Lewis and Mioch 2005). Poverty, Inequality and Disaster Risk Reduction 21 Table 3: Poverty and Inequality in Selected Central American & Caribbean countries (applicable year in parentheses) % below poverty line Extent of income inequality (Gini)a Belize (2002) 34.0 .40 Dominica (2002) 39.0 .35 Dominican Republic (2010) 48.5 .48 Grenada (1999) 32.1 .45 Haiti (c. 2004) 76.0 .65 Honduras (2010) 50.7 .55 Jamaica (2002) 19.7 .38 St Lucia (2006) 28.8 .42 St Vincent & the Grenadines (1996) 37.5 .56 Country Source: 1. English-speaking Caribbean countries (incl. Belize) - Bourne, C. (2008). 2. Dominican Republic & Honduras - UNDP World Development Report, 2010 Statistical Tables. 3. Haiti - Caribbean Development Bank (2007). a. The Gini coefficient measures the level of inequality - the extent of the gap between rich and poor in a country with 0 representing perfect equality and 1 represent perfect inequality. Honduras provides an example of the relationship between governancerelated factors on natural hazard impact. Despite achieving independence from Spain in 1821, the Honduran military has long played an active role in that country’s governance. In addition, the dominance of the Honduran economy by large multinational interests and of Honduran politics by the foreign policy interests of the United States, has meant that the country has endured decades of instability with any benefits accruing to a small national elite, external proprietors and the United States (Grandin 2009). In the case of St Vincent and the Grenadines, notwithstanding a far lower death toll, its reliance on banana exports and tourism makes it safe to assume that the impact natural hazards on people’s livelihoods is severe. In fact it could be argued that that nation’s level of inequality both contributes to and is deepened by frequent exposure to hazards such as hurricanes and floods. Fortunately, despite there being considerable room for improvement, the country has enjoyed the relative stability of a multi-party democracy with functioning public institutions over its 32 years of political independence. 22 Caribbean Journal of Social Work However, current economic trends, including increasingly unfavourable terms of trade, increase the already high vulnerability not only of St Vincent and the Grenadines, but also of the other OECS member states due to their status as small island developing states (SIDS). Small island states have above average levels of vulnerability due to their physical size, resource endowment and patterns of development, for example, the concentration of their populations in coastal regions. Estimates of vulnerability put the likelihood of harm from a disaster at 0.328 in the developed countries, at 0.475 for developing countries in general, but at 0.635 for small island developing states. This means that the citizens of small island states are at 50% greater risk of experiencing severe harm in the event of a natural hazard than even their counterparts in the rest of the developing world (Briguglio1995). Haiti When examined from a political economy perspective the logic of the extent of the destruction and levels of deprivation being seen in Haiti becomes apparent. At the time of January 12 earthquake, I wrote elsewhere: There is a strong foundation for arguing that the seeds of the current crisis were laid in 1825 when Haiti agreed to pay France 150 million gold francs in compensation for the alleged losses incurred by French plantation owners when the Haitian people won their independence in 1804. This figure is said to have amounted to more than twice the country’s net worth at the time. The agreement was made at the point of the guns on the French warships sent to re-colonize the island and after economic boycotts imposed by France, Spain and the United States. Although the figure was reduced to 90 million francs, it still took 122 years to be repaid. In 2003, then President Jean-Bertrand Aristide demanded reparations in the amount of US $21 billion, the estimated current value (plus interest) of the money that was paid over to France. There are those who think that this demand is not disconnected from Aristide’s removal the following year. Despite Haiti’s contribution to the American independence struggle, a point noted by the current Haitian Ambassador to the U.S., the Americans have more often than not joined the French in their attempts to undermine the Haitian people’s efforts to build sustainable institutions capable of serving their interests. The U.S. actually occupied Haiti for 34 years, and subsequently was an active supporter of the dictatorial regimes of Francois ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier and his son ‘Bebe’ Doc. In fact Haiti’s post- Poverty, Inequality and Disaster Risk Reduction independence history could be characterised as a continuous series of interventions by the major Western powers (France, Germany, the United States and even Britain), coups and counter coups, and classic scenarios of in country minority interests (mixed race Haitians schooled in France, resident expatriates and the military) aligning themselves with these foreign powers and business interests to ensure that they remained the beneficiaries of all that Haiti has ever produced. Unconditional debt cancellation It is not surprising therefore that the first independent Black nation of modern times finds itself in its current state. It has scarcely had space to breathe much less grow in the two hundred years since its birth. Although two-thirds (approx. US $1.2 billion) of the country’s debts have been cancelled under the Highly Indebted Countries (HIPC) initiative of the World Bank and IMF, the conditions of the write off have been as onerous as the debt they were supposed to relieve. In any event, the debts that have been written off are those which have been contracted up to 2004. Debts incurred in the past five years must also be taken into account. In this year [2010] alone Haiti is due to pay a further US $10 million to the IMF and the Inter-American Development Bank. It was an unpayable debt even before the earthquake in much the same way as the need for food, education, housing and health care was urgent before January 12, 2010. The challenge of recovery and reconstruction presented by [the] earthquake creates an opportunity not only to mobilise humanitarian assistance for our much abused “big sister”, but also to pronounce the need for the Haitian people to experience “full free”. The first step must be the complete and unconditional cancellation of all of Haiti’s debts. The funds that are now being pledged by governments such as the United States and France will be but a drop in the bucket. If the task of finding ways to deliver and distribute water, food supplies and desperately needed medical assistance seems gargantuan, it pales into insignificance when we consider the task of helping to reconstruct an independent state with effective institutions responsive to the majority of its citizens. In fact debt cancellation is only one side of the coin. President Aristide’s demand for reparations has again become relevant (Baker 2010). 23 24 Caribbean Journal of Social Work Disaster management as a field of practice In recent times several events on the international scene have increased the attention of social work educators and practitioners to institutional and other aspects of disaster risk reduction and disaster management. The 2004 tsunami drew the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) into a partnership with social work schools in Sri Lanka to strengthen their disaster management curriculum and to support their involvement in the reconstruction process. (See http://www.iassw-aiets.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view &id=72&Itemid=92 for a report on this initiative). Hurricane Katrina had a similar effect on many social work schools in the United States. It prompted the newly established Katherine A. Kendall Institute for International Social Work of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) to make disaster management its first substantive area of work, beginning in 2007 with a regional curriculum development workshop in Barbados which it co-sponsored with the Association of Caribbean Social Work Educators (ACSWE) and the IASSW. (See http://www.cswe.org/ CentersInitiatives/KAKI/KAKIResources/25187.aspx for resource materials). In the Caribbean, developments such as Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, the activity of the Soufriere Hills volcano in Montserrat since the mid-1990s and the impact of Hurricane Ivan in 2004, also stimulated efforts to address social work’s role in disaster management among social work faculty at all three campuses of the University of the West Indies (UWI). Disaster related content has been integrated into courses such as that on social planning in the undergraduate social work programme at the UWI Mona campus and the social work programme at the University of Belize offers a course in disaster management. Students from the UWI Cave Hill campus implemented a project in Grenada in response to the damage caused by Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and faculty at UWI Cave Hill did a survey of Barbadian student and practitioner perspectives on training needs (Rock and Corbin 2007). The Association of Caribbean Social Work Educators (ACSWE) has included papers and workshops on disaster management in the programme of its biennial conference and provided an outlet for scholarly writing on the topic in its journal. (See Matthews [2006], Ring and Carmichael [2006] and Rogers [2006]). There is substantial agreement that social work has an important role to play in disaster management (Rock and Corbin 2007; Soliman and Silver 2003; Yanay and Benjamin 2005; Zakour and Harrell 2002). Not Poverty, Inequality and Disaster Risk Reduction 25 surprisingly, the social work community in the Caribbean, as has happened elsewhere, has focused on the psychosocial interventions and coordination roles that can be played in the relief and rehabilitation phases of the disaster management process. Ironically however, while agencies such as the Red Cross play a leading role in this area, and many social workers serve as members of Red Cross mental health teams, within the Caribbean, professional social workers are not usually intentionally employed by these agencies. Indeed, it appears that while workers such as those in social assistance may be involved in impact assessments post event, very few social workers actually work in disaster management on a sustained basis. This situation could be partially explained by the rather limited resources allocated to disaster risk reduction management on the part of many governments, who tend to rely on external funding for this essential activity. The absence of the ready availability of training in disaster management for social workers and the lack of appreciation of the roles that can be played by members of the profession could be additional factors. Strengthening existing knowledge & skills One could argue that the field of disaster management not only calls forth social work’s existing practice skills and knowledge but also requires the development of new approaches and knowledge to address the challenges posed by natural disasters. For example, cultural considerations aside, the classic one-to-one psychotherapeutic approaches used in work with individuals and small groups would be inadequate for meeting the needs when the entire population of a town or village has experienced a traumatic event. In fact, concern has been expressed about the reliance on a tool such as Critical Incident Stress Debriefing in community-wide disaster situations (Hiley-Young and Gerrity 1994). In any event, in small island states such as found in the Caribbean, it would be practically impossible to train a large enough cadre of persons to deliver this kind of service according to the prescribed method and an over-reliance on this technique could result in persons experiencing greater harm if inadequately trained persons are engaged in its provision. Workers in Grenada used techniques of popular theatre developed by the cultural and non-formal education community in the Caribbean to help communities deal with the trauma arising from Hurricane Ivan (Rogers 2005). Systematic training in, application and evaluation of these techniques could result in a significant advance in clinical social work practice in the region. 26 Caribbean Journal of Social Work In a similar vein, the area of community practice would be greatly enhanced by the integration of knowledge about addressing challenges posed by natural disaster which are already embodied in publications from United Nations agencies such as the Inter-Agency Standing Committee which coordinates the work of the major government and NGO humanitarian organisations. A variety of handbooks and articles are available from the IASSW website addressing issues such as gender-based violence in humanitarian emergencies and promoting human rights in disaster situations (See http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/iasc/pageloader. aspx?page=content-products-default) . In addition, there is an obvious complementarity between the assetbased approaches to community organising developed in North America (Kretzmann and McKnight 1993; Mathie and Cunningham 2002) the philosophy and strategies of PLA (Participatory Learning and Action), and the strategies of Community-Based Disaster Preparedness, both of which emerged out of the work of groups and organisations in Asia (Heijmans and Victoria 2003). Moving into new arenas Social work practitioners have long tended to perceive direct practice as a more attractive option than social work administration. However it is in providing leadership in organisations that social workers can sometimes have their greatest impact. Social Workers should fully participate in the planning and implementation of programs administered by the Caribbean Disaster Management Project (CDMP) as well as the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA). Their training and skills…would be instrumental in mitigation efforts and in establishing policy for ongoing monitoring and response to natural disasters in the region. A unit of such agencies/projects should develop a system of reciprocity among Caribbean countries, whereby skilled personnel in particular areas (including social work) could be sent to another country where such expertise is needed. The receiving country can then reciprocate in an area in which the sending country lacks particular resources. This also has the effect of forging “professional” regional integration. (Dr Lear Matthews, Guyanese American social work educator. Personal communication, September 16, 2010). Poverty, Inequality and Disaster Risk Reduction 27 Dr Jennifer Dolly-Holder, a former member of the social work faculty at the UWI St Augustine campus in Trinidad, spent two years in Grenada providing leadership to the post-Ivan reconstruction effort. Her work covered the full range of reconstruction activities: from crafting culturally appropriate psychosocial interventions to helping to devise new settlement strategies. She observed that the lack of trained personnel resulted in less than effective representation in the national planning machinery as well as service deficiencies in the field. She spent part of her time designing and conducting training programmes for staff as well as developing alternative income earning opportunities for the large number of women who had lost their livelihood due to the destruction of the nutmeg industry. Above all, Dr Dolly-Holder noted that ‘a great deal of our work was advocacy for services’, in the context of a competitive electoral political system where the period of disaster recovery provided opportunities for those aspiring to represent the people to make themselves seen and heard. (Personal communication, September 16 and October 12, 2010). Beyond vulnerability and inequality The preceding discussion has brought to light the multi-faceted nature of disaster management. The levels of vulnerability to the negative impact of the increasingly frequent occurrence of natural hazards to be found in the Caribbean, the immediate and long-term implications of these events provide support for disaster management to emerge as a field of social work practice in the Caribbean. In addition to developing knowledge and skills for direct practice, Caribbean social workers need to be better equipped to negotiate organisational environments at national and regional levels and ultimately to contribute their distinct perspectives and experiences in the relevant international fora. Disaster risk reduction begins long before a country experiences a hazardous event. Social workers need to appreciate the structural contexts of their work and be equipped to employ practices which can contribute not just to reductions in vulnerability and risk of harm but to increases in capacities for self-organisation and action in defence of life and livelihood. Disaster management needs to be occurring prior to a disaster. Developmentally, in some Caribbean islands, persons, families, communities have not fully recovered from previous disasters that occurred years ago. So social work must be done in such a way as to build resiliency in all systems. This is uncommon to Caribbean social work, which has not focused on prevention, and has focused on casework and crisis intervention with little thought or resources 28 Caribbean Journal of Social Work given to long term or developmental planning in social services. Disasters need to be given more priority in all stages of a country’s development. (Karen Ring, Lecturer, UWI Cave Hill, Barbados. Personal communication, September 16, 2010.) Caribbean social workers must honour the profession’s long-standing duty and commitment to advance the interests of the vulnerable and disadvantaged by establishing a presence in national and regional disaster management organisations and claim not only their own right but the right of the most affected to be heard. I would like to express my appreciation to Dr John A Maxwell, Snr. Lecturer (Retired), for soliciting from colleagues the comments reported in this article. Peta-Anne Baker, PhD Lecturer in Social Work and Coordinator of the Social Work Programme, Department of Sociology, Psychology & Social Work, University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica Petaanne.baker@uwimona.edu.jm References Anderson, M.B. and P.J. Woodrow. 1989. Rising from the Ashes: Development Strategies in Times of Disaster. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Baez, J.E., Santos, I.V. 2007. 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