This course is joint offering of National Disaster Coordinating Council and World Bank Institute, in partnership with Earthquake Megacities Initiative.

The consequences of natural disasters on economic activities, property, human welfare and natural resources can be devastating. These events greatly affect the productive sectors of the economy, not to mention the impacts on communities, in particular, the poor.

With increasing frequency, countries face situations in which scarce resources that were earmarked to development projects have to be diverted to relief and reconstruction. A recent World Bank Study on Jamaica, Dominican Republic and OECS countries confirms that long-term economic growth recovers slowly after major natural disasters. Disasters directly impact the foreign exchange earnings capacity of countries, at a time when extra resources are needed to finance the necessary imports of food, energy and factors of production. If sustainable development is to be achieved, countries will have to take effective measures to manage natural hazard risks.

The course is based on the Handbook developed by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and Caribbean. It incorporates both the conceptual and methodological aspects of measuring the damage caused by disasters to capital stocks, losses in the flows of goods and services, and temporary effects on the main macroeconomic variables. The presented methodology can be also used to estimate whether there is a sufficient domestic capacity for dealing with reconstruction tasks, or whether international cooperation is required. 

Language

The language of the course is English.

Course Format

The course consists self-paced modules, discussion forums, exercises, readings, case studies, tests and learning via interaction with program faculty and peers. The course includes 3 audio sessions of expert lectures for 40–45 minutes each.

Course Expectations

Participants are expected to commit 8–10 hours per week in order to gain the most out of this course in addition to:

• Complete the required reading assignments
  
• Participate in all online activities. Participation involves posting a minimum of two messages per week that are substantive in nature. The message can be either a new topic or a reply to someone else's message.
  
• Participants are encouraged to post more often than twice a week in order to be involved more deeply into topics.
  
• Participate in videoconferencing and asynchronous chat sessions (if applicable)
  
• Complete assignments and end of course project
  
• Complete course evaluation at the end of the course

System Requirements of the Course

·   Hardware: Pentium 166 or faster, 64Mb Memory, CD-ROM, Sound Card

• Software: Windows 95,98,ME,NT 4,2000 or XP Internet Explorer 4 or higher, Netscape 4 or higher Microsoft Office 2000 (Word,Powerpoint) Acrobat Reader 5 

Course Overview

Disasters have a major impact on the living conditions, economic performance, and environmental assets of affected countries. Consequences may be long-term and may cause irreversible damages to environmental, economic and social structures.

Statistics show that disasters cause the most significant and irreversible damage in developing countries, where the poorest and most vulnerable population groups are disproportionately impacted. By contrast, in the developed world, a considerable degree of protection against disasters has been achieved, as a result of effective prevention, mitigation and planning measures that reduce vulnerability. But even with these impressive results, damages in these countries have risen due to greater concentration and value of societal activities.

To reduce the long-term impact of disasters, and to achieve sustainable growth, affected countries must (i) assign financial resources for prevention and mitigation of the foreseeable impact of disasters, and (ii) ensure that once disasters occur, reconstruction investments incorporate vulnerability-reduction measures. This latter point should be underscored in light of reconstruction efforts undertaken by many countries. In most cases, we observe that vulnerability is reconstructed along with destroyed assets, mainly because of scarce resources available beyond the emergency and humanitarian assistance stage.  

This course offers a set of diagnostic tools to measure the type and extent of damage and losses caused by a specific disaster. It can be used immediately after the emergency stage to assess the direct and indirect effects of a catastrophic event, and its implications for the social well-being and economic performance of the affected area. This comprehensive methodology covers the broad range of effects and their cross implications for the economic and social sectors, physical infrastructure, and environmental assets. Based on its estimates, it is possible to determine the reconstruction requirements and identify appropriate reconstruction programs and projects.

This specialization course targets central government policymakers, representatives of donor agencies and disaster management professionals. The course consists of two modules and an end of course exercise.

Module 1 : Global Perspective

• Session 1: Introduction to Damage and Needs Assessment Methodology and Basic Concepts
  
  This session briefly reviews the concepts associated with disasters: their nature and causes, phases and cycle.  It elaborates on the causal link between exposure and vulnerability as they relate to the damage and reconstruction needs assessment. The session attempts to create a common language of basic terms and concepts that can be used by specialists from different disciplines who are involved in disaster assessment. It introduces the terminology used in ECLAC methodology and discusses the basic elements of disaster valuation. It also presents potential uses of the damage and reconstruction needs assessment in policy formulation.
  
• Session 2: Valuation of the Impact of Disasters
  
  Disasters impact the welfare of people, in terms of lives and injuries that are difficult to quantify. Damage assessment therefore mostly focuses on socio-economic and environmental damages that occur as a consequence of natural catastrophes. These losses of assets and the impact on flows of goods and services vary according to local circumstances and the time, strength and duration of the disastrous event. Effects can be direct and indirect, and affect different sectors of the economy in distinct ways. Thus, assessment must be done carefully to avoid possible duplication. The session summarizes the methodology used to assess the overall impact of damages, in the short- and medium-term, on the main economic variables, social systems and the environment. 

• Session 3: Prevention and Mitigation: Post-disaster Management
  
  Post-disaster response is an opportunity to reconstruct in a way that makes the affected population and region less vulnerable to disaster risk. The choice of prevention and mitigation tools - structural, organizational, financial – and the process of choosing itself have long-term effects on vulnerability. The session reviews the mitigation and prevention measures that should be considered, the necessity of stakeholder involvement, the costs of mitigation and the challenges to its implementation.

Module 2: Philippines’s Perspective

• Session 1 – Improving Damage Assessment for Efficient Recovery and Reconstruction
  
  The session aims to bring forth the relevance of disaster assessment in design and management of recovery and reconstruction programs. It suggests the need to consider improvements in the system for making the recovery process more efficient.  Based on understanding of the past recent disasters in India, the presentation brings forth the issues related to disaster assessment and the key points, which need to be considered for improving the process.
  
• Session 2 – Information Network and Management in Post Disaster Recovery
  
  The session explores the advantage of information network and management through examples which have been developed and adopted to facilitate the recovery process. It helps to understand that cooperation and coordination among the stakeholders, availability and systematic dissemination of useful information for both pre and post disaster management activities become essential elements in undertaking disaster risk management and even development work.

End of Course Project

To meet the course completion requirement the participants are required to submit an end-of course case study/project. The project is intended both as a theoretical exercise for assessing the diverse effects of a natural disaster in a city, and as a practical one that will provide you with the necessary tools to face a real evaluation event. In this project, participants will estimate the impacts of drought on a hypothetical Central American city by applying the ECLAC methodology covered in the course. 

National Disaster Coordinating Council  (NDCC), and Earthquake Megacities Initiative (EMI)

This course is offered to a group of up to 40 central government officials, policymakers, consultants, researchers and professors of training institutions worldwide, who are interested in development challenges and issues related to natural disaster risk management. Once the course has ended, participants from training institutions are welcome to replicate this training for their staff, for central and local government officials. Donors working in hazard and disaster related projects could also apply to attend the course. Only applicants who attended the Comprehensive Disaster Risk Management Framework course will be accepted.