Increase In Natural Disasters Health And Social Care Essay

Increase In Natural Disasters Health And Social C ar EssayExtreme brave pop temperatures and addition in native catastrophes in recent age pre angle finally made the insurance makers think earnestly about clime change and Natural chances. The stern review and the Inter regimenal Panel on modality Changes fourth (revised) sound judgment draw in 2008Ahad clearly give ind that increase in vivid misfortunes payable to humour change will set about adverse hits on friendly and economical sectors. The report which had decl atomic number 18d that humour change will cause increase in native contingencys in coming divisions, has lived up to its prediction. According to UNISDR from year 2008-2011 natural misfortunes maintain been account commensurate for economic restoration worth 730 Billion USD, exact adversely affect 843 million people and killed about 598,000 people around the world. There has been an increase of lots than 50% in the number of gormandizes in the go decennary in comparison to the 1990s and similarly the occurrence of total natural misadventures has to a fault increased oer the last decade. Error Reference source non foundThe increase in two the intensity and frequency of floods over the last decade has raised concerns within development agencies, governments and regional co-operations natural misfortune guidance has gained priority among all stakeholders. In 2005 U.N created The Hyogo Framework for ActionB a global blueprint for disaster risk reduction efforts with a ten-year plan, the manikin was adopted in January 2005 by 168 governments at the U.N World Conference on Disaster Reduction. 2Although all 168 countries did accept the simulation in principle, til now in that location has been little done to reduce greenhouse emissions or adapt disaster risk reduction strategies crossways the board. withal in response to the declination 2004 tsunami and the earthquake of December 2005 in South Asia, a Specia l seance of the SAARC Environment Ministers (Mal, 25 June 2005) adopted the Mal Declaration on a corporal response to large scale natural disasters. A SAARC Disaster guidance Centre (SDMC) was established in New Delhi in October 2006, the SDMC was created to provide form _or_ system of government advice and facilitate capacity building including strategic learning, investigate, training, governing body development, expertise onward motion and exchange of information for good disaster risk reduction and management. 3 insurance policy making has excessively been activated at the state aim, for example the government of Queensland in Australia has taken initiative on a state level of creating a policy framework to reduce and tackle natural disasters. The framework called the Disaster Management Strategy Policy framework includes explore, Policy and Governance, fortune Assessment, Mitigation, Prep atomic number 18dness, Response, Relief and Recovery, Post-Disaster Assessm ent. 4One might be of the opinion that disaster charge offts be probabilistic events and their occurrence kindle only be calculated on a probability basis and on that point is no escape from their destruction. stock-still it is alpha to understand the consequences of the occurrence and what squeeze out be done to back up the abnormal populace overcome the calamity natural disasters cause. Research has shown contempt the scale of the disaster, a combination of national and global policy batch help ward off disease and death in countries with work governments. This writings review investigates previous studies conducted on the socio economic tint of floods in context to Gender.The 2010 floods in PakistanThe geological department of the Australian government defines floods as the covering of normally dry land by water that has flee or been released from the normal confines of any lake, or any river, brook or otherwise natural watercourse, whether or not altered or mo dified or any reservoir, hoboal, or dam. 4Floods primarily impact the gay community either directly through contact with the water or indirectly through the damage the water does to the natural and human race make environment. 5 Localized floods hindquarters spend a penny a signifi go offt impact on peoples physical and mental health. 6The 2010 monsoon floods were one of the largest floods in the history of Pakistan causing singular damage and killing more than 1,700 people. The floods impact over, 20 million people, flood al virtually one fifth of the countrys land and ca utilise loss of billions of dollars through damage to infrastructure, housing, agri close and livestock, and other family assets. 8The World fix and Asian nurture Bank estimated that the deluge had caused the economy $9.7 billion in losses. 9 Cases of malnutrition, gastroenteritis, diarrhea, scrape up infections, cholera, typhoid, malaria, and hepatitis were account. Food prices dramatically increa sed after the flooding, putting an economic strain on the intact population.The southern province of Sindh was hit quite heavily by the floods, it was reported that nearly Seven million people were boot out on by floods in the province thousands were trapped by flood irrigate and had been in wishing of assistance. Our instruction region the southern district of Thatta was affected in a catastrophic manner by the floods, as the f pitiful of the flood waters touched 9,50,000 cusecs the feeble dykes built to protect the districts populace overflowed causing both banks of the Indus River to flood causing enormous amount of destruction.At the time of flooding the state machinery which included both the provincial and federal government a commodious with many international and national NGOs led the simplicity efforts and was able to eliminate the occurrence of any larger catastrophe much(prenominal) as faraway spread hunger or famine. However in recent years continuous acts of t errorism begin kept the government preoccupied with matters of overt safety and certification, this has diverted the governments attention from institutional reform to matters of ad-hoc nature. The presence of situational take exceptions has cut down state capacity to productively provide staple services for which resources had already been deficient. This has limited governments response to natural disasters mostly to needs assessment and present(prenominal) relief operations. The assessments grant typically focused on direct damages of smashing assets which includes number of deaths and injuries, damages to buildings and public infrastructure, loss of crop and livestock.Assessments of disaster impacts on neighborly sectors much(prenominal) as health and education ar also limited to the measurement of damages to aim and hospital buildings, the assessments tend to ignore the persistent destination affects on the health and education levels of the affected populace. Lo ng term assessments of social sectors is critical even more so for a country like Pakistan as it already struggles with low social development indicators, ranking 145 out of 187Ccountries in the Human Development Index and a Gender Development Index (GDI) ranking of one hundred twenty out of 146Dcountries.Approaches to measure impact of natural disastersResearchers across the world consider used diverse approaches to determine the impact of floods. In Pakistan the EU has antecedently employ the EMMA (Emergency Market Mapping and Analysis), which is a rapid market abridgment patterned to be used in the short term slipstream of a sudden-onset crisis. A better understanding of the most critical markets in an requisite situation enables decision makers (donors, NGOs, government, other humanitarian actors) to consider a broader range of responses. The aim of the approach is to gauge and understand the structure and functioning of key markets in the short term so that immediate re trieval programs are in consistent to the on the ground situation. Although the research is useable in providing immediate relief, however the approach does not take into consideration the long term effects of the disaster. 10Likewise another approach which shadower help donors target their recuperation efforts is ECLAC, ECLACs methodology is tie in to post disaster evaluation it focuses on rehabilitation and recuperation. It advocates using a dynamic and sectoral office that enables the researchers to calculate future losses derived by the destruction of productive structures and forfeitures of task opportunities and its middle/long term effects in different cost. The methodology aims to enable its users to try to define if and which type of international cooperation the community affected needs. Although precise knowledge of various sectoral damages and losses, present and future, suffered by the communities enables the disaster relief agencies to execute more limited reh abilitation vomits, however utilisation of a macro-perspective to gauge the damages and provides losses in monetary terms leaves out the impact on social sectors and chiefly focuses on economic costs. 11In a Flood-site project report on the Mulde River in Germany the researchers have taken the bottom up perspective to analyze social exposure posed by floods. The methodology seeks to categorize the circumstances that make an episode-by-case or a community compromising and investigate how some groups in these circumstances might be more vulnerable than others. The researchers who define social vulnerability as the characteristics of a person or group in terms of their capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist, and recover from the impact of a natural hazard primarily focus on how communities and social groups are able to deal with the impacts of a natural hazard. The approach provides valuable insight into the dynamics of social capital, simply wants detail of sectoral assessm ents. 12Along with well targeted programs it is important that recovery programs are sustainable. In Sudan, AIACC has employed a research method ground upon the sustainable livelihood conceptual framework the research method aims to gauge the performance of sustainable livelihood and environmental management measures. International institute for Sustainable Development defines sustainable livelihoods as being concerned with peoples capacities to kick in and maintain their means of living, enhance their well-being, and that of future generations. Sustainable livelihood assessment is intended to generate an understanding of the map and impact of a project on enhancing and securing local anesthetic peoples livelihoods. It primarily relies on a range of info appealingness methods, a combination of soft and quantitative info indicators and, to vary degrees, application of a sustainable livelihoods framework. The model focuses on five types of capital namely natural, physical human, social and financial. The framework employs the Livelihood Assessment bring in (LAST) System to measure changes in coping and adaptive capacity. Quantitative and qualitative indicators are combined with the LAST system for its use the LAST system is developed through creation of development indicators by the help of the local community. 13All the above mentioned frameworks, even with their short-comings provide valuable inputs into the assessment methods of disaster impacts. However, the above discussed frameworks which focus on immediate needs assessment, macro-economic impacts, social capital, and sustainable livelihoods do not seem to be grammatical gender cranky and wish concentration on social sectors in a gender bare-ass manner. It has been time and again noted that women are most adversely affected by natural disasters. Sara-Bradshaw in her paper socio-economic impacts of natural disasters advocates the use of a gender approach the paper states that the first step to ensuring that the specific basic needs of women are addressed over the short and long term is to collect data broken by stimulate and age segments directly after the occurrence of a disaster. This is important because breaking up of data helps realize the affects of the flood on women in specific and assists in set off the specific requirements of the gender. For example in many cases in a Islamic country women might opt not to visit a anthropoid doctor, hence if the researchers have the number of women who need medical attention they can arrange fe mannish doctors accordingly. 14Gender Aspects of Natural Disasters InternationalEnarson et al 1998, Fordham 1998, Morrow 1999 and Tapsell et al 2000 are of the view that floods and other disasters can impact upon men and women in different and distinct ways. Similarly It is believed that men and women will be face up with different vulnerabilities to climate change impacts due to vivacious inequalities such as, their role and position in society, access to resources and power relations that whitethorn affect the ability to respond to the effects of climate change (WEDO 2007 Commission on the Status of Women 2008 Carvajal et al 2008 Bridge, 2008). 1516 17 18 19 It is a basic fact that seeity of the women in ontogeny countries and particularly in the South Asian region are at a disadvantage when compared to their male counterparts.International Literature such as Tapsell et al 2003 illust pass judgment that women suffer markedly more than men at the worst time of flooding. Research has shown that due to socially constructed roles and responsibilities, women seem to bear the most burdens resulting from climate variability impacts. Due to the traditional gender roles in many developing countries, it is seen that women are in charge of the house and trusty for theater needs such as cooking, washing, hygiene, children and raising small livestock. Children, in particular girls share these responsibilities . In Africa, women do 90% of the work of stack away water and wood, for the household and fare preparation. It is noted that women have to work supererogatory workloads when faced with natural catastrophes as they try to manage their bothday tasks during an emergency situation. 20 21 Qualitative research suggests that this is because women have the main responsibility for, and probably, a great emotional investment in the home than men. They also usually have the key responsibility for the carry on of children and the elderly in the home, for example even in a post flood situation it is the central responsibility of the woman for getting the home back to normal after the flood. 22In many developing countries and especially in the south Asian region, fare hierarchies favor male nutritional requirements and a great deal women nutrition and health requirements are ignored. In Bangladesh it has been reported that Given the already precarious nutritional state of large numbers o f girls and women in Bangladeshany further increase in discrimination would have serious consequences. In distressing households, throughout the world, women go without intellectual nourishment for the benefit of their children or male family members. 3031 Moreover an ADB report in 2001 found that in Bangladesh of the 20-30% female headed households, 95% are living down the stairs poverty line. Even in developed countries such as the U.K, lone(prenominal) parent and single pensioner households-the majority of which are female headed are most likely to be living in poverty. It is noted that in some instances pressure on families has been so gruelling that there have been reports of children being offered for domestic employment, and of female children being sold. The picture informs us that women headed households already tend to have limited economic resources and hence a natural disaster can have a greater impact on their livelihoods in comparison to others.Other than the ove r-all poverty rates, health and education are two sectors where women in the region still lag behind men. The poor nutritional status of women makes them more susceptible to disease infection, particularly in developing countries where there is little social provision and limited or no access to proper medical care. Poor nutrition also makes women more vulnerable to disasters, and makes the physically strenuous tasks of water and fuel collection more difficult. Research in India has found that girls nutrition suffers most during periods of low consumption and rising food prices , which is common during disaster situations 3637.Fewtrell and Kay (2006) provide evidence of floods causing Bacterial, fungal, respiratory disease, and gastrointestinal infection on with earache and skin rashes among others. It is widely acknowledged in health research that some groups, such as women (especially pregnant women), the young, the elderly and immune compromised people are more vulnerable to hea lth impacts (especially infection) than other people (e.g. Flynn and Nelson, 1998 White et al., 2002 WHO 2004). 28 Moreover floods can also have an impact on the mental health of the affectees. It has been suggested that women may suffer more mental strain in certain situations, due to ethnical norms. Women in poor health prior to the flood are more likely to sustain the flooding as traumatic. When whole families touch to urban slums or relief camps the women face challenges adapting to the new environment. Problems include molestation, privation of security, unreliable water supplies which increases their workload, and gender insensitive conditions such as lack of privacy also have a tolling effect. Long journeys to the relief camps can cause both physical and mental stresses when coupled with experiences of knowledgeable harassment on these journeys. Womens dramatically expanded care giving roles following a disaster, and putting family needs before their own, may explain ove rall step-down in emotional well being. 29Gender Aspects of Natural Disasters PakistanThe international belles-lettres on women in relation to climate change clearly highlights the severe vulnerability and adverse exposure natural disasters pose to women in particular. Similarly research studies have been conducted by different development organizations to gauge the impact of the severe floods that hit Pakistan recently. The research results are in line with international research literature. As Pakistani women particularly tend to mainly have reproductive and domestic roles in the households and are barely visible in the public spheres, particularly in rural areas, these characteristics make way for a greater impact on their socio-economic conditions from natural disasters. The existing situation of women in Pakistan cannot be fully valued without an understanding of the ways in which religion, culture and traditions have organized social relations and fractured society along cla ss, racial, ethnical and gender lines. Pakistan therefore, presents a distinctive situation from a socio-economic perspective. In Pakistan manpower and boys are given more weightage over the family resources in comparison to women and girls. A survey conducted by OCHA as a unavoidably Assessment admit on the 2011 floods in Sindh found that 37% of households had reduced or skipped food intake practice adopted by women and girls in the household to represent the ration requirements, which is similar to findings mentioned earlier from Bangladesh. 32Nazish brohi et al have analyzed rising trends and data, relying primarily on the Gender Needs Assessment (GNA), the Multicluster fast Assessment Mechanism (McRAM), case studies and emerging secondary information. Their education includes case studies based on the various experiences of women to floods. The women respondents in the study have insisted that they had no prior information about the floods and many were taken back by surp rise. The unexpectedness of the floods magnified its impact and also increased the exposure of the flood victims. The study present insights into the experiences of women through case studies, for example in Mianwali, a thirty year old woman, Jawwahi, rushed out with her family in waistline high water and saw her house crumble before her in Charsadda, women awoke to cries and found water rushing into their houses. Similarly the study also illustrates how women hygiene had been affected due to floods. For example in Kalabagh district, Baghat Bibi, a sixty year old woman with her three daughters and three daughters in law visited the river every few days and submerged themselves in the water to clean themselves and their clothes, and therefore dry themselves while wearing the same clothes it is reported that the they had been doing it for over three weeks. As women in rural areas are not used to moving about in public spaces other than their villages girls and women are often embarr assed to be seen accessing lavatories and hence do so during nightfall or early morning. Such overwhelming circumstances coupled with cases of harassment can have profound impacts on mental health. 35The Preliminary Gender Needs Assessment report by UNIFEMEreports that the women were under severe stress as the devastation caused by the floods destroyed their limited assets, worsened their personal security situation, and changed their responsibilities as they were forced to respond to emergency conditions. The report stresses upon the fact that even though womens health is vital to the well-being of their families, after disasters, traditionally as caregivers, they tend to place their needs last. It also affirms that in certain provinces, ethnic norms such as purdah limit women from being able to evidence their needs, additionally women also tend to have a chance of acquittance unnoticed in the compensation process as their economic contri providedions are usually unseen.Similarl y the women interviewed by IDMC in Sindh alleged that access to income-earning opportunities has been their biggest challenge and a major concern for women heads of household. The slow pace of recovery from the elongated damage the floods caused to the agricultural sector was expected to have a major impact on womens employment. Women also lacked the documentation to prove their property rights. As a result, widows and women heads of household interviewed by IDMC reported great difficulty in claiming inheritances, land and possessions left at home when they fled. 23A March 2011 report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) found that internally displaced women and girls across the country could not venture out to receive emergency food aid without being threatened for violating purdah. 24 Women complained that most health services forthcoming in the aftermath of the floods concentrated on basal health care with little specialized focus on reproductiv e health for women. 25 A 2010 assessment by the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) quoted women as reporting sexual harassment in flood displacement camps where different tribes, families and villages were placed together. 26 thereof it is essential that researchers while assessing the effects of flood take both long term and short term health impacts into account. It is important for the research study to describe the characteristic impacts of floods on health outcomes, describe the factors that influence human health as a result of floods, describe the direct health impacts of floods and develop a conceptual framework to aid in the management and evaluation of flood related health management.The literacy rates of women in developing countries are much lower than their male counterparts. A study by UNICEF in the aftermath of the 2010 floods showed that there are gender disparities in add together side factors in Sindh including availability of schools for girls and boys. Pre f lood institution break up by gender, level and sector shows that at the primary level there are 60% mixed schools in the public sector and 42% mixed schools at the middle level. At the primary level parents are more comfortable with sending their girl child to mix school however there is reluctance when it comes to middle school when the girl attains puberty, the dropout rates are also highest at that point and majority of the dropouts occur when girls course from primary to middle level. Similarly the study provides evidence of gender disparities existing in Thatta the study demonstrates the trends in pre and post flood situations in primary enrollment. 38 Lack of access to education isnt always related to scarcity of schools however the unavailability of this supply side factor can play a major role in decreasing access to education along with the unavailability of female teachers as well. Economic costs, social traditions, and religious and cultural beliefs also limit girls educ ational opportunities particularly when it comes to middle and high level schooling. As these social development indicators become worse due to the affects of climate change it is important for the authorities to not only measure them but also address them with sustainable development programs.Given that men and women in the study area are poverty-stricken with dependency on cultivation and natural resources for their livelihoods, natural disasters pose a high risk for them. As evident by the literature reviewed vulnerability seems to be higher for women as they do not have alternative means of employment and most of all employed women in the study area are employed by the agriculture sector. More and more researchers have concluded that it is important to opt for a gendered analysis when researching on flood impacts, Sarah Bradshaw in her study Socio-economic impacts of natural disasters a gender analysis states The first step towards ensuring that the specific basic needs of wom en are addressed over the short and long term is to collect data broken down by sex and age segment immediately after a disaster. The breaking up of data helps researchers understand women specific needs better, which in turn can help policy makers design and implement women specific strategies and programs. 27Even though the evidence provided above from both international and local research literature clearly advocates the case for greater vulnerability of women from natural disasters not much has been done to assess the post disaster impact of floods on women. Research studies have remained limited to rapid assessments or need assessments, post disaster impact have not been concentrated upon. In order to design long term sustainable gender sensitive recovery programs it is all-important(a) to understand the post disaster impact of floods on women, keeping this in mind the present study Social-Economic Impact of Flood in district Thatta A Gendered Analysis is a pioneering work in Pakistan in which SPDCs researchers have gone a step ahead from other studies and have essay to assess the post disaster impact of one of the worst floods of the century.Furthermore, research has shown that despite obstacles faced by women, they are already developing effective coping strategies which include adapting their farming practices. Literature such as (WEDO, 2003 Gurung et al., 2006 Mitchell et al., 2007) pointed out that women are very knowledgeable and experienced with regards to coping with climate related impacts. They are aware of their needs and are very innovative in the face of change. Communities on the frontline in adapting to the effects of natural disasters need but so far often lack, adequate information about climate change and adaptation strategies. Due to the womens lower literacy levels in many regions, and other barriers to accessing information, such as culture, it is vital that womens needs are addressed in efforts to provide necessary information. 43 Ariyabandu and Wickramasighe (200526) suggest that although women are often more vulnerable to disasters than men (owing to conventional gender responsibilities and relations) however they are not only if helpless victims as often represented. Women have valuable knowledge and experience in coping with disasters. Yet these strengths and capabilities of women are often ignored in policy decisions and in mitigation, thereby, allowing these valuable resources to go to waste and sometimes creating dependency situations. Ignorance of gender differences in the recent has led to insensitive and ineffective relief operations that have not been able to target womens needs and their authority to assist in mitigation and relief work. 44 Hence this research is also important because not all is gloomy, as international research has suggested that in developing countries already experiencing negative effects of climate change, women have been place as particularly adaptive and innovative, the refore the current research study shall play a valuable role in making policy makers better understand the long term issues of Pakistani women in particular and discover their strengths and weaknesses.Taking the above into consideration, SPDC has designed a gender sensitive research study to determine the impact of the 2010 flood of Thatta. A gender sensitive primary survey is vital in helping identify Gender gaps, hence SPDC researchers created separate questionnaires for men and women. The study helps understand the differences in the socio-economic impact of the flood on women, men, girls and boys. This includes gathering gender sensitive data on the sectors of education, health, economic, flood coping capability and the overall impact of the flood. In order to assess and evaluate the effect of flood on the household welfare and behavior, the study collects individual and household information from both male and female respondents separately, making use of gender sensitive appro aches which in the past have been limited to needs assessments or rapid assessment studies.