Abstract
The international institutional order that has gradually developed around the UNISDR since the 2000s has been accompanied by a triple process: quantifying the “disaster” phenomenon that the nascent international world must address, producing a shared language to communicate within this world, and finally, standardizing the ways in which disasters are dealt with. As David Mosse writes about the development world,
The production of “global” (or “scientific”) orders requires hard work. […] Ultimately, harmonized global development policy is an interpretive order that conceals the complex politics of passions of practice, while being powerful enough […] to ensure that diverse events, ambitions and political exigencies are translated into a singular global logic which helps sustain the comforting metropolitan illusion that global policies make history. But even though global policy does not produce the orders it describes (they do not involve de facto control), its effects, brought through directing resource flows, are real. (Mosse 2005: 23–24)
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Notes
- 1.
Conference entitled “Invest Today for a Safer Tomorrow.”
- 2.
Daniel Kahneman is an Israeli-American psychologist and economist, Professor at Princeton University, winner of the Nobel Prize for economics in 2002 for his work on prospect theory, which is the basis of behavioral finance. He is also known for his work on the economy of happiness.
- 3.
Up until then, a large portion of data on disasters was provided by aid agencies such as OFDA (Kent 1987).
- 4.
EM-Dat does not only count “natural” disasters but also technological and biological disasters, as well as conflicts.
- 5.
See Chap. 2 for an overview of the creation of the CRED by Michel Lechat, and the epidemiology of disaster.
- 6.
- 7.
UNISDR definition. The full definition is as follows: “a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society involving widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses and impacts, which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources.” (Terminology on Disaster Risk Reduction, UNISDR 2009, p. 9, available online: https://www.unisdr.org/files/7817_UNISDRTerminologyEnglish.pdf, accessed April 10, 2018).
- 8.
Interview with one of the training officers at UNISDR, Sendai, Japan, March 16, 2015.
- 9.
My emphasis.
- 10.
See, for example, the work by Hrabanski (2015) on market-based instruments for compensating loss of biodiversity.
- 11.
Observations, Geneva, November 2016.
- 12.
The DTM was first used in Iraq. The tool was largely funded by the US government, in order to “follow” the population movements within the country. For an analysis of the tool in the Haitian context, see Wörlein (2017).
- 13.
See http://www.globaldtm.info/ (accessed April 12, 2018).
- 14.
The Japanese foundation Sasakawa, now the Nippon Foundation, presents itself as humanitarian foundation and funds many international organizations and in particular WHO. It was founded by Ryôichi Sasakawa, a well-known figure in Japanese fascism, who was accused of class A war crimes. Since 1986, the foundation has funded the “Sasakawa” prize that rewards disaster risk reduction initiatives, and the UNISDR now administers this prize.
- 15.
“Suggested elements for the post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction,” note by the Secretary General, Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, Preparatory Committee, First session, Geneva, July 14–15, 2014.
- 16.
Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030.
- 17.
Natural Disasters—Phenomena, Effects and Options followed by a report: R. Ockwell, Disaster-related terminology, some observations and suggestions. A report to UNDRO, December 1990.
- 18.
Glossary: Internationally agreed glossary of basic terms related to Disaster Management, available online: https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/004DFD3E15B69A67C1256C4C006225C2-dha-glossary-1992.pdf (accessed April 12, 2018).
- 19.
Ibid., p. 10.
- 20.
Ibid.
- 21.
Report of the open-ended intergovernmental expert working group on indicators and terminology relating to disaster risk reduction, Seventy-first session Agenda item 19 (c), December 1, 2017, doc: A/71/644. My emphasis.
- 22.
On the lack of a shared language in international bodies, see Bendix (2012).
- 23.
English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, and Chinese.
- 24.
- 25.
Interview, Mexico City, Mexico, October 8, 2012.
- 26.
Expression used by an instructor during an OSOCC course, Mexico, 2012.
- 27.
Humanitarian reform, conducted from 2005, consists in transforming the practices of humanitarian agencies at the international level, from their funding to their reorganization into clusters. See: https://www.unocha.org/sites/dms/ROWCA/Coordination/The_Four_Pillars_of_HumanitarianReform_EN.pdf (accessed April 12, 2018).
- 28.
The Sphere Project and the standards it implements were debated at length in the journals in which both practitioners working in humanitarian action, and researchers working on it publish. For example, between 2000 and 2019, there were 203 articles containing a discussion on Sphere in the journal Disasters alone.
- 29.
Resolution 57/150 of December 26, 2002. USAR: Urban Search and Rescue.
- 30.
Interview with Dewey Perks, founder of INSARAG, Mexico, October 10, 2012. Peter Bille Larsen proposes an analysis of the Guidelines as a cultural field with the ability to displace and requalify power relations. He considers them normative instruments (Larsen 2013).
- 31.
INSARAG External Classification (IEC).
- 32.
Reception and Departure Centre (RDC), a space programed within the INSARAG methodology to welcome, guide, and sort people and institutions who arrive to bring assistance in the wake of disaster.
- 33.
Interview, Mexico City, Mexico, October 8, 2012.
- 34.
Informal discussion, Mexico City, Mexico, October 8, 2012.
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Revet, S. (2020). Creating Common Ground to “See the Same Disaster”. In: Disasterland. The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41582-2_5
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