Original RADIX References
Human Rights
The most challenging questions, thought not at all new, focus on whether human beings have a right to security from disasters triggered either by extreme events in nature or by failure of human techno-systems. Despite appearances, this is neither a childish concept nor strictly metaphysical or theological. I am not kicking my heals at heaven or denying Buddha's Four Nobel Truths. We all do suffer, sicken, grow old, and die. The question is whether as an acculturated species that shapes its own "second nature", we are moving toward a shared belief that the authorities responsible for social order have a responsibility to provide minimum, internationally agreed safeguards against catastrophic events. Parallel debates from the mid-1970s onwards concerning basic needs and human rights (see my book Power and Need in Africa: Basic Human Needs and Development Policy. London: Earthscan, 1988) and the more recent turn toward rights-driven approaches (e.g. by UNICEF and UNDP) suggest we are.
Cultural and Social Issues
The most challenging questions, thought not at all new, focus on whether human beings have a right to security from disasters triggered either by extreme events in nature or by failure of human techno-systems. Despite appearances, this is neither a childish concept nor strictly metaphysical or theological. I am not kicking my heals at heaven or denying Buddha's Four Nobel Truths. We all do suffer, sicken, grow old, and die. The question is whether as an acculturated species that shapes its own "second nature", we are moving toward a shared belief that the authorities responsible for social order have a responsibility to provide minimum, internationally agreed safeguards against catastrophic events. Parallel debates from the mid-1970s onwards concerning basic needs and human rights (see my book Power and Need in Africa: Basic Human Needs and Development Policy. London: Earthscan, 1988) and the more recent turn toward rights-driven approaches (e.g. by UNICEF and UNDP) suggest we are.
For Cultural and Social Issue Resources and Pieces, please click here
Economic Development and Politics
Countries like El Salvador are part of a system now called "global." Throughout the 1980s there have been wave after wave of interventions by the international financial institutions designed to manage external debt and to encourage growth based on free trade. El Salvador emerged from its brutal land wars ("civil war", 1980-1992) into a world where neoliberal principles of less government or other forms of social control and more market control was almost unquestioned. NAFTA was two years away. However, complete laissez-faire precludes effective control of land development in dangerous places, regulation of dangerous factories and pollution, centrally funded and maintained infrastructure accessible to the poor. A new global economic order has shifted and reallocated risk socially and spatially (see John Handmer and Ben Wisner, "Hazards, Globalization, and Sustainability: Conference Report." Development in Practice 9,3, (1999), pp. 342-346). The ordinary people affected by market driven development are not unaware of what is happening to them. Frances Fukuyama may think that history has ended, but Superbarrio (a series of Mexican activists dressed as a masked wrestler) continues to struggle with "greed" and "corruption" as opponents in performances in the working class colonias of Mexico City. Opposition of political parties to the "recovery" plans of the ruling party are part of a broader discontent with dollarization and the stresses of globalization.
For Economic Development and Politics Resources and Pieces, please click here
Sustainable Development and Politics
We approach the tenth anniversary of the Earth Summit in Rio. "Rio + 10" is an occasion to look critically as the notion of sustainable development. For cities it is impossible to conceive of "greening", much less "sustainable development" without enforced land use planning. San Salvador is not exceptional as a city where the brightest and the best write plans and legislate regulations that are never implemented or enforced. Why? What can be done about it?
For Sustainable Development and Politics Resources and Pieces, please click here
Knowing vs. Doing
It is not only the well established principles of urban and environmental planning that fail to be applied. The IDNDR produced and disseminated a wealth of shared scientific and technological knowledge in such areas as earth science, engineering, hydrology, climatology, logistics, and public health. However there are still huge gaps between science and government, science and the media, science and educators/ opinion leaders, and science and the public. I focus on just one body of knowledge below - landslide hazard identification - but the point should be considered a general and challenging one.
For Knowing versus Doing Resources and Pieces, please click here
Links to related sites
All India Disaster Mitigation Institute
http://www.southasiadisasters.net/
Asian Disaster Preparedness Center
www.adpc.net
Asian Urban Disaster Mitigation Programme:
http://www.adpc.ait.ac.th/audmp/audmp.html
Bilham, Roger: Global Urbanization and Increased Seismic Risk:
http://cires.colorado.edu/~bilham/globalEQfatalities.html
Coordinadora Civil para la Emergencia y la Reconstrucción - CCER Nicaragua
http://www.ccer-nic.org/
Center for Public Health and Disaster Relief
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/cphdr/
Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disaster (CRED):
http://www.cred.be/
Centre for Science and Environment:
http://www.cseindia.org/index.html
Cepredenac:
www.cepredenac.org
CISPES (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador)
http://www.cispes.org
Comision Nacional de Emergencias de El Salvador
www.coensv.50megs.com/mapas
CRID (Centro Regional sobre la Informacion de Desastres)
www.crid.or.cr
The Crisis States Development Research Centre, based in the Development Studies Institute of the London School of Economics & Political Science
http://www.crisisstates.com
DesInventar:
www.desinventar.org/terremoto
Disaster Diplomacy:
http://www.disasterdiplomacy.org
Disaster Planning and Emergency Management
www.emergency-planning.blogspot.com
Disaster and Social Crisis Research Network (D&SCRN):
http://www.erc.gr/english/d&scrn
Disaster Mitigation for Sustainable Livelihoods Programme, University of Cape Town (Periperi is there):
http://www.egs.uct.ac.za/dimp/
Duryog Niravan
http://www.duryognivaran.org
Earthquakes and Megacities Initiative:
http://www.emi-megacities.org
Environmental Justice Resource Center
http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/
Feinstein International Famine Center
http://famine.tufts.edu/
Gender and Disaster Network:
http://www.gdnonline.org
GeoHazards:
http://www.geohaz.org/home.htm
The Guardian
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/
Guardian online, Ben Wisner:
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4128181,00.html
Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center
http://hrrc.tamu.edu/hrrc/
Human Development Reports:
http://www.undp.org/hdro/
Humanitarian Practice Network:
http://www.odihpn.org/
Human Rights links:
http://www.igc.org/igc/issues/hr/
IDNDR
http://www.oneworld.org/idndr/index.html
IDNDR Urban Earthquake Risk Reduction Program (RADIUS):
http://www.geohaz.org/radius/
IIED's Human Settlements Program:
http://www.oneworld.org/iied/human/
International Famine Centre, University College Cork
http://www.ucc.ie/famine/
ISDR (United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction)
http://www.unisdr.org/
Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG)
http://www.oneworld.org/itdg/
La Red:
http://www.desenredando.org/
Many Strong Voices
www.manystrongvoices.org
Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER):
http://mceer.buffalo.edu/
Natural Hazards Information Center:
http://www.Colorado.EDU/hazards/
Oscar Romero University (named for slain Salvadoran priest, Oscar Romero):
http://text.mnm.kent.edu/~umoar/index.html
Pan American Health Organization (PAHO):
http://www.paho.org/
PreventionWeb
http://www.preventionweb.net
Protezione Civile
www.protezione-civile-italia.blogspot.com
Provention Consortium
http://www.proventionconsortium.org
Community Risk Assessment Toolkit (CRA) toolkit
http://www.proventionconsortium.org/?pageid=39
Relief Web:
http://www.reliefweb.int
Salud y Desastres en Centroamerica:
http://www.disaster.info.desastres.net/saludca/desastresCR/
SEEDS (The Sustainable Environment and Ecological Development Society ):
www.seedsindia.org
United Nations Centre for Human Settlement (Habitat):
http://www.unchs.org/
UNDP Emergency Response Division:
http://www.undp.org/erd/
United Nations Institute for Social Research:
http://www.unrisd.org/index.htm
Urban Development/ World Bank:
http://www.worldbank.org/html/fpd/urban/
Vulnerability Assessment Techniques and Applications
(National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration and Organization of American States, Unit for Sustainable Development and Environment).
http://www.csc.noaa.gov/vata/
http://www.proventionconsortium.org/?pageid=39
WHO Healthy Cities Program:
http://www.wits.ac.za/fac/med/comhealth/healthy.htm
World Assembly of Urban Inhabitants:
http://www.laneta.apc.org/hic-al/
World Resources 1996-7: The Urban Environment:
http://www.wri.org/wri/wri/wri/wr-96-97/96tocful.html