Ms. Li was visiting friends in a nearby village when her hometown, the Old City of Lijiang in China’s Yunnan Province, was struck by a 7.0 degree magnitude earthquake. It was February 3rd, 1996, and Ms. Li recalls how she immediately “prayed that no one was injured at home.” She soon found out that her family was unharmed, yet unfortunately some 309 people were killed and more than 4,000 people were seriously injured.

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A post disaster scenario offers a range of opportunities for affected communities to respond to the crisis. This was the case in the state of Maharashtra, India, when it was struck by a 6.4 degree magnitude earthquake in 1993. According to a recent study on assistance for natural disasters, “projects financed by the Bank have elevated the status of women in society by providing land titles in the names of both men and women”.

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Farmers in the West African nation of Niger grow their crops across a thin band of land in the southern-most part of the country, just a day's drive from the Sahara desert. Rainfall is their main source of water, in a good year their crops receive 200 to 300 millimeters (8 to 10 inches) of water, barely enough to produce dry-land crops such as pearl millet or sorghum.

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