About 2.57 billion urban dwellers in developing nations are vulnerable to high levels of risk fuelled by rapid urbanisation, poor local governance, population growth, poor health services and, in many instances, the rising tide of urban violence.
The figures are from the World Disasters Report released by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) on Tuesday.
A key finding of the report is that between one-third and one-half of the population of most cities in low- and middle-income nations live in informal settlements. It is common in such cities for local authorities to refuse to extend to them all the infrastructure and essential services that do so much to reduce disaster risk. Much of this urban population is also particularly exposed to the consequences of climate change.
Existing measures of risk and vulnerability have been criticised by IFRC for undervaluing the impact of disaster losses on slum dwellers in favour of measuring the impact of disasters on large economies and major infrastructure where loss of life may be minimal but economic damage is considerable.
Governments and NGOs must address the urban risk divide which exists between cities that are well-governed and well-resourced compared to those that struggle with a lack of resources, knowledge and will to ensure a well-functioning urban environment.
“For the first time in human history more people live in towns and cities than in the countryside, but the world has not kept pace with this change. This is why more people live in slums or informal settlements than ever before and this will lead to more people being affected by urban disasters like the terrible earthquake which struck Haiti earlier this year," Bekele Geleta, IFRC Secretary-General, said.
The root cause of why so many people are affected by urban disasters is that a billion people live in poor-quality homes on dangerous sites with no hazard-reducing infrastructure and no services, the report underlined. In any given year, over 50,000 people can die as a result of earthquakes and 100 million can be affected by floods and the worst-affected are most often vulnerable city dwellers.
David Satterthwaite, World Disasters Report lead writer and Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), said: “People living in well governed cities are among those who benefit from the world’s best quality of life and highest life expectancies. Generally, the more urbanized a nation, the stronger its economy, the higher the average life expectancy and the literacy rate, and the stronger the democracy, especially at local level.
Among other things, the World Disasters Report found that forcible eviction is a constant threat to the urban poor. Largescale evictions by public authorities displace millions every year, sometimes for re-development or beautification projects, or simply to target and remove what they consider undesirable groups.
The location of cities will affect the types of climate hazards to which urban communities are exposed. Over half of 37 cities in Africa with more than 1 million residents are in the low-elevation coastal zone. A sea level rise of just 50 cm would lead to over 2 million people in Alexandria, Egypt, needing to abandon their homes.
