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Natural disasters, such as droughts, floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes, repeatedly ravage developing countries around the world. Some, such as the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 or the South Asia earthquake of 2005, gain worldwide prominence and prompt an outpouring of support. But many lesser-known disasters happen every year. These events do not stay long in the news, but their ruinous effects on employment, infrastructure, and livelihoods linger for years.
While countries cannot prevent natural disasters, they can minimize the damage they cause. Underlying the devastation of a disaster are often vulnerabilities stemming from poverty, social exclusion, and environmental degradation. The hardest-hit victims are those living in precarious conditions and dangerous locations. Communities can, therefore, minimize damage by reducing the socio-economic and physical vulnerability of specific groups and using risk-reduction techniques in infrastructure construction. The ILO promotes this through its participation in the International Recovery Platform, an inter-agency framework dedicated to disaster risk reduction.
Though never desirable, natural disasters also necessitate reconstruction that can spur local economies and generate employment using appropriate development and relief-to-development instruments. The ILO’s experience shows that when their basic needs are met, disaster victims quickly turn to “rebuilding their lives.” Employment-intensive infrastructure projects (EIIP) are especially suitable. As implemented and tested around the world by the ILO, EIIP help public investments create more jobs. This is part of the ILO’s commitment to avoid returning to the prior situation. Rather, the Organization seeks improvements, within an overall vulnerability reduction strategy, that will offer communities more chances for decent work than they had before.
After natural disasters, the ILO works to:
- Reintegrate survivors and displaced persons and provide emergency employment.
- Repair essential infrastructure and homes, using labour-intensive or labour-based methods when possible.
- Help re-establish and build the capacity of key institutions, such as labour market institutions and the ILO’s tripartite constituents.
- Prevent further deterioration of community and household coping mechanisms.
- Develop strategies to promote employment and reduce poverty.
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