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The Short- and Medium-Term Human Development Effects of Climate-Related Shocks: Some Empirical Evidence

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Book cover Risk, Shocks, and Human Development

Abstract

Weather-related disasters are usually seen as ‘here today-gone tomorrow’ events. However, the effects they have on the prospects for development can unlock cumulative cycles of disadvantage. Although they have immense immediate costs in terms of lives lost and impaired livelihoods, weather-related shocks also have many other intrinsic costs, which often go unnoticed as far as policy is concerned. For example, although the loss of assets during a flood, drought or cyclone is a terrible event in its own right, it also has the potential to leave people more exposed to future vulnerability. Droughts can have a huge immediate toll on poverty, but they also have the potential to deplete the household’s productive potential. Similarly, if people are forced to lower their calorie intake, this can leave children more susceptible to illness, exacerbating already existing low levels of nutrition and poor health conditions.

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Authors
  1. Ricardo Fuentes-Nieva
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  2. Papa A. Seck
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Human Development Report Office of UNDP, USA

    Ricardo Fuentes-Nieva (policy specialist) (policy specialist)

  2. UNDP’s Human Development Report Office, USA

    Papa A. Seck (statistics specialist) (statistics specialist)

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© 2010 United Nations Development Programme

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Fuentes-Nieva, R., Seck, P.A. (2010). The Short- and Medium-Term Human Development Effects of Climate-Related Shocks: Some Empirical Evidence. In: Fuentes-Nieva, R., Seck, P.A. (eds) Risk, Shocks, and Human Development. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230274129_7

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