Disater Risk Management Disparity in the Caribbean: Evidence from Barbados, Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago

This study on risk and disaster management capacities of four Caribbean countries: Barbados, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, examines three main dimensions: 1) the impact of natural disasters from 1900 to 2010 (number of events, number of people killed, total number affected, and damage in US$); 2) institutional assessments of disaster risk management disparity; and 3) the 2010 Inter-American Bank for Development (IADB) Disaster Risk and Risk Management indicators for the countries under study. The results show high consistency among the different sources examined, pointing out the need to extend the IADB measurements to the rest of the Caribbean countries. Indexes and indicators constitute a comparison measure vis-à-vis existing benchmarks in order to anticipate a capacity to deal with adverse events and their consequences; however, the indexes and indicators could only be tested against the occurrence of a real event. Therefore, the need exists to establish a sustainable and comprehensive evaluation system after important disasters to assess a country’s performance, verify the indicators, and gain feedback on measurement systems and methodologies. There is diversity in emergency and preparedness for disasters in the four countries under study. The nature of the event (hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and seismic activity), especially its frequency and the intensity of the damage experienced, is related to how each has designed its risk and disaster management policies and programs to face natural disasters. Vulnerabilities to disaster risks have been increasing, among other factors, because of uncontrolled urbanization, demographic density and poverty increase, social and economic marginalization, and lack of building code enforcement. The four countries under study have shown improvements in risk management capabilities, yet they are far from being completed prepared. Barbados’ risk management performance is superior, in comparison, to the majority of the countries of the region. However, is still far in achieving high performance levels and sustainability in risk management, primarily when it has the highest gap between potential macroeconomic and financial losses and the ability to face them. The Dominican Republic has shown steady risk performance up to 2008, but two remaining areas for improvement are hazard monitoring and early warning systems. Jamaica has made uneven advances between 1990 and 2008, requiring significant improvements to achieve high performance levels and sustainability in risk management, as well as macroeconomic mitigation infrastructure. Trinidad and Tobago has the lowest risk management score of the 15 countries in the Latin American and Caribbean region as assessed by the IADB study in 2010, yet it has experienced an important vulnerability reduction. In sum, the results confirmed the high disaster risk management disparity in the Caribbean region

Urban Informality: Global and Regional Trends

This working paper is an introduction to urban informality in the Latin American and Caribbean region as part of a larger comparative analysis on informal settlements in the region. Based on recent reports published by multilateral agencies, international organizations, and national governments, this paper offers a compendium of the presented figures on informal employment, slums dwellers, and housing conditions at global and national levels. This enabled some comparative analyses on informal economy and informal settlements among LAC countries. Results suggest that the informal economy in the LAC region is significant, representing about 50 percent of total workers in many countries. Likewise, the LAC region is one of the most urbanized in the world, however, it has a high rate of urban informal economy with a ‘persistent’ urban population living in informal settlements

Disaster Risk Management and Business Education: the Case of Small and Medium Enterprises

It is safe to say that building disaster resilience by preparing for disasters with a business continuity plan is vital for small business to thrive in the long run. More often than not, small business owners invest large sums of money, time, and resources to make their ventures successful and yet, many of them fail to properly plan and prepare for disaster situations. With this problem in mind, Florida International University (FIU) became the house of the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) and the Extreme Events Institute (EEI). Together, both institutes have collaborated in their mission to spread disaster resilience and business continuity management knowledge and best practices in an accessible way to small businesses in South Florida and Latin America. By developing and disseminating knowledge, processes and best-practices through several activities and channels such as business consulting and business continuity plan elaboration, Pasantías (Practicums), and the Disaster Resilience Toolkit for Small-and-Medium-Sized Enterprises, both institutes truly represent FIU’s experience with SMEs and its commitment with entrepreneurship and South Florida’s community

Pequeñas y medianas empresas en las Américas, Efecto de la Experiencia en Desastres sobre las Capacidades de Preparación

Disaster risk reduction (DRR) is key in strengthening resilience and achievement of sustainable development. The private sector is co-responsible for DRR: it is a generator of risks, and a subject exposed to risks. There are competing narratives in the literature regarding the relationship between business’ disaster experience and DRR. The current study defined and characterized businesses in the Americas, with a particular interest in small and medium enterprises, and examined whether disaster experience predicts DRR, considering business size. Secondary data analyses were conducted using data from a previous study on private sector participation in DRR conducted in six Western Hemisphere cities (N=1162): Bogotá, Colombia; Kingston, Jamaica; Miami, USA; San José, Costa Rica; Santiago, Chile; and Vancouver, Canada. Results confirmed that business size matters – small businesses had lower levels of DRR efforts compared to medium and large businesses. Disaster experience (i.e., supply chain disruption, loss of telecommunications, power outage, and damaged facilities) predicted DRR. The findings underscore the importance of fostering, advising, and financing small and medium enterprises to proactively develop capabilities in the line of risk and emergency management, and early resumption of operations, post-disasters. Governing agencies and civil society organizations have the ability to provide this support.La reducción del riesgo de desastres (RRD) es clave para fortalecer los procesos de resiliencia y lograr un desarrollo sostenible. El sector privado es corresponsable de la RRD debido a que puede ser un generador de riesgos y a la vez, estar expuesto a ellos. Ciertos discursos académicos compiten entre sí con respecto a la relación entre la experiencia de desastre de las empresas y la RRD. Este estudio definió y caracterizó diferentes empresas en América, con un interés particular en las pequeñas y medianas empresas, y examinó si la experiencia de desastres puede ser un indicador fiable para predecir la RRD, considerando el tamaño de las empresas. Se realizaron análisis de datos secundarios empleando una encuesta de participación del sector privado en la RRD en seis ciudades del hemisferio occidental (N=1162): Bogotá, Colombia; Kingston, Jamaica; Miami, Estados Unidos; San José, Costa Rica; Santiago, Chile; y Vancouver, Canadá. Los resultados confirmaron que el tamaño de la empresa es importante: las pequeñas empresas mostraron niveles más bajos de RRD en comparación con las medianas y grandes empresas. El haber experimentado un desastre (es decir, la interrupción de la cadena de suministro, la pérdida de las telecomunicaciones, la interrupción del suministro eléctrico y el daño a las instalaciones) predijo la reducción del riesgo de desastres. Los hallazgos subrayan la importancia de fomentar, asesorar y financiar a las pequeñas y medianas empresas para desarrollar de manera proactiva, capacidades en la línea de gestión de riesgos y manejo de emergencias, así como la reanudación temprana de las operaciones después de los desastres. En este contexto, las agencias gubernamentales y las organizaciones de la sociedad civil poseen la capacidad para proporcionar este apoyo

Small and Medium Enterprises in the Americas, Effect of Disaster Experience on Readiness Capabilities

Disaster risk reduction (DRR) is key in strengthening resilience and achievement of sustainable development. The private sector is co-responsible for DRR: it is a generator of risks, and a subject exposed to risks. There are competing narratives in the literature regarding the relationship between business’ disaster experience and DRR. The current study defined and characterized businesses in the Americas, with a particular interest in small and medium enterprises, and examined whether disaster experience predicts DRR, considering business size. Secondary data analyses were conducted using data from a previous study on private sector participation in DRR conducted in six Western Hemisphere cities (N=1162): Bogotá, Colombia; Kingston, Jamaica; Miami, USA; San José, Costa Rica; Santiago, Chile; and Vancouver, Canada. Results confirmed that business size matters – small businesses had lower levels of DRR efforts compared to medium and large businesses. Disaster experience (i.e., supply chain disruption, loss of telecommunications, power outage, and damaged facilities) predicted DRR. The findings underscore the importance of fostering, advising, and financing small and medium enterprises to proactively develop capabilities in the line of risk and emergency management, and early resumption of operations, post-disasters. Governing agencies and civil society organizations have the ability to provide this support

The allure of otherness: transnational cult film fandom and the exoticist assumption

Academic scholarship addressing transnational cult fandom, particularly Western cult fans forming attachments to films outside their cultures, has frequently addressed the issue of exoticism. Much attention has been paid to how Western fans are problematically drawn to artefacts outside of their own cultures because of exotic qualities, resulting in a shallow and often condescending appreciation of such films. In this article, I critique a number of such articles for merely assuming such processes without proffering sufficient supporting evidence. In fact, I argue that a number of such exotic-oriented critiques of transnational cultism are actually guilty of practising what they preach against: an insufficient contextualization of fandom and a tendency to downplay the messiness of empirical data in favour of generalized abstractions. Further, I argue that the constant critique of fans as avoiding contextualization has not only been overstated but stringently used as a yardstick to denigrate fan engagements with texts as improper. As such, fans are often ‘othered’ within such articles, a process mirroring the ways they are accused of othering distant cultural artefacts

The absence of race in democratic politics: The case of the Dominican Republic

This dissertation explores the relationship between race and democratization. Through the examination of the case of the Dominican Republic, this study challenges mainstream explanations of democratic transitions. At its core, this dissertation aims at calling attention to the absence of race and ethnic allegiances as explanatory variables of the democratic processes and debates in the region. By focusing on structural variables, the analysis shies away from elite and actor-centered explanations that fall short in predicting the developments and outcomes of transitions. The central research questions of this study are: Why is there an absence of the treatment of race and ethnic allegiances during the democratic transitions in Latin America and the Caribbean? How has the absence of ethnic identities affected the nature and depth of democratic transitions? Unlike previous explanations of democratic transitions, this dissertation argues that the absence of race in democratic transitions has been a deliberate attempt to perpetuate limited citizenship by political and economic elites. Findings reveal a difficulty to overcome nationalist discourses where limited citizenship has affected the quality of democracy. Original field research data for the study has been gathered through semi-structured interviews and focus groups conducted from October 2008 to December 2009 in the Dominican Republic