Disasters and development in Southeast Asia Toward equitable resilience and sustainability

Disasters, occurring as a result of complex interactions between human action and natural hazards (see Turner et al. 2003; Wisner et al. 2004), are a growing threat to the development and prosperity of nations, societies and communities across Southeast Asia (Gupta 2010). ¹ Disaster risks are being created within development; developmental processes largely determine the exposure of people, resources and assets to hazards, susceptibility to suffering harm and capacity to cope with and adapt to new conditions (see UNISDR 2015). This currently ‘negative’ two-way relationship between disasters and development needs to be transformed to a condition where development reduces risk and disasters provide opportunities for enhanced development and resilience. This chapter provides a review of the historical trends and impact of disasters and the status of disaster risk in Southeast Asia. It then discusses the importance of reducing that risk by tackling the underlying drivers of exposure and vulnerability generated inside development as well as pursuing equitable outcomes in resilience processes. Significant risk reduction in the region could be achieved by transforming developmental processes that have historically created risk toward processes driven by equity, resilience and sustainability.