Post-disaster Resilience: problems and challenges

A better understanding of resilience is important to understand what is needed, in social and material terms, for post-disaster recovery

Abstract

This work is part of ‘ Poverty Alleviation in the Wake of Typhoon Yolanda’ project supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the UK Department for International Development.

The overarching aim of the project is to identify strategies that work in relation to poverty alleviation in post disaster urban environments and the conditions necessary for the success and scaling up of these strategies. The Typhoon Yolanda relief efforts in the Philippines are used as a case study. The project focuses on urban population risk, vulnerability to disasters and resilience in relation to environmental shocks. We focus on attempts to build resilience over time and examine the extent to which the notion of ‘Building Back Better’ is credible.

This paper argues that ‘resilience’ is an overused, poorly understood and contested term. A better understanding of resilience is important in order to understand what is needed, in social and material terms, for successful post-disaster recovery.

Citation

Eadie, Pauline (2017) Post-disaster Resilience: problems and challenges: (Working Paper V)

Post-disaster Resilience: problems and challenges

Published 30 November 2017