Post-disaster housing and management in Malaysia: a literature review

Purpose – Malaysia is still in the process of reorganising and restructuring disaster management policy, learning from the national and international experiences. Argument about current situation of emergency management and housing in Malaysia can be used by the decision makers, authorities and NGOs to develop strategies and actions that include awareness raising and capacity building for enhancing enforcement of current legislation. Design/methodology/approach - The work concentrated mostly on academic reports of original investigations rather than reviews. The conclusions in this paper are generalizations based on the author's interpretation of those original reports. Findings - Malaysia is not a developed country and also not a developing country but more in the middle, follows any direction from the international arena to national situation. Malaysia has a developed country approach in disaster management policy but with the implementation of developing country. This paper argues that providing post disaster housing must accommodate requirement in the national disaster management policy and parallel with the needs from international concern to the rights of disaster victims. Originality/value - The outcomes from this discussion might give insights into designing and planning the national policy and disaster management framework by restructuring and reorganising the present National Disaster Management Mechanism in terms of enhancing the coordination of responsibility between and within government bodies in the National Disaster Management Mechanism

Introduction: Peasants, Pastoralists and Proletarians: Joining the Debates on Trajectories of Agrarian Change, Livelihoods and Land Use

Recent changes in the agrarian studies and geography literatures present differing views on the pace and trajectory of change in rural developing areas. In this special section of Human Geography, we contrast the theoretical and practice implications of these differing approaches, namely depeasantization, accumulation by dispossession and deproletarianization. Depeasantization refers to change in livelihood activities out of agriculture, long theorized as necessary for an area’s transition into capitalism. Accumulation by dispossession is a process of on-going capital accumulation where a give resource is privatized, seized, or in some other manner alienated from common ownership in order to provide a basis for continued capital accumulation. Deproletarianization occurs when workers are no longer able to freely commodify and recommodify their only commodity, their own labour. In this section, we explore these three theses with case studies that draw upon empirical data. The papers in this collection all speak to one aspect or another of these debates. We do not intend to try to determine a “best approach”, rather we explore strengths and weaknesses of each argument. The production of nature, change in the mode of production and the political economy of nature are discussed in the first article by Brent McCusker. Phil O’Keefe and Geoff O’Brien examine the evolution of worked landscape under pre-capitalist modes of production in riverine ecologies. Through further case studies, Paul O’Keefe explores links between livelihoods and climate change in Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, while Franklin Graham explores the persistence of pastoralism in the Sahel. Finally, Naomi Shanguhyia and Brent McCusker examine the process of governance in dry land Kenya through the study of chronic food shortages

Could guns and rain spell the end for the Karamojong?

Over one million people live in Karamoja, a region found in the north Eastern part of Uganda. To a visitor passing through from the capital city Kampala, Karamoja may look like any other region in Uganda but appearances can be deceptive. The region is characterised by the worst humanitarian and development indicators in Uganda

Thoughts on the World Food Crisis.

Draft paper. Food Aid. (710)The digital Cuny Archive was made available in part through funding assistance from USAID.INTERTECT

The adaptation continuum: groundwork for the future

The focus of the program was to understand the challenges posed by climate change and climate variability on vulnerable groups and the policies needed to support climate adaptation in developing countries. The aim of the book is to share this experience in the hope that it will be helpful to those involved in shaping and implementing climate change policy

Climate change and variability, energy and disaster management: produced risks without produced solutions: rethinking the approach

Accelerated climate change and increasing climate variability is the single largest threat to the international goals of sustainable development, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and disaster risk reduction. Global discourses recognise the need for effective and sustainable responses tso produced climate risks. The risk types likely to occur are known, but only in broad terms - their scale, severity, longevity and frequency are not known. The challenge for policymakers is developing an effective framework within which sustainable responses can be formulated. To address the problems of produced risks a comprehensive approach to risk management is necessary. The mechanisms within the climate change, sustainable development and disaster risk reduction discourses are not sufficiently effective or integrated to respond to this challenge. Fundamental reform to current modes of risk reduction is needed, but this can only be achieved through a shift in the dominant perspective on formulating sustainable responses. This requires a shift to an enabling policy framework that encourages bottom-up resilient responses. Resilience is argued as a tool for policy development that can enhance adaptive capacity to current climate risks and shape energy policy to respond to mitigate future climate risks

Eleven Antitheses on Cities and States: Challenging the Mindscape of Chronology and Chorography in Anthropogenic Climate Change

Our basic argument is that we should be thinking in trans-modern ways when considering how to react to anthropogenic climate change. Showing that mainstream approaches to climate change theory and policymaking are overtly modern, we identify this as a mindscape inherently constrained by its particular chronology and chorography. Our contribution to necessary trans-modern thinking is a presentation of eleven basic and widely accepted theses on modern chronology and chorography that we contest through antitheses, which we argue are more suited to engaging with anthropogenic climate change. These support a consumption argument for urban demand being the crucial generator of climate for 8,000 years in direct contradiction to the production argument that greenhouse gases are the crucial generator of climate change for 200 years. The modern policymaking focus on curbing carbon emissions is thus fundamentally flawed - merely feeding energy for continuing an accelerating global consumption in a different way that is only marginally more climate-friendly. Reflecting on the antitheses, we conclude by discussing the difficulties of translating trans-modern ideas into political action

Full report of the evaluation of the Liberia PRRO 10454.0 (July 2007-June 2009): a report from the Office of Evaluation

This evaluation examined the relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability of protracted relief and recovery operation 10454.0 “Food Assistance for Relief and Recovery in Post-Conflict Liberia”. The objective of the evaluation was twofold: i) to determine the degree to which project objectives had been achieved; and ii) to draw lessons from which to enhance performance in the next phase of the operation. The evaluation was carried out by a team of external consultants who conducted field research from 2 to 19 November 2008. The evaluation found that there was a clear need for food aid in Liberia and that school feeding, which accounted for approximately three quarters of project commodities, was an appropriate activity that channelled substantial quantities of food to remote rural areas under difficult operational conditions. However, the evaluation also found that the operation design was weak: it sought to achieve too much in a situation where capacity to implement programmes was extremely limited at all levels, and the main activities did little to address the main causes of food insecurity and vulnerability in the country. The operation design could have been more closely linked to the findings of the 2006 comprehensive food security and nutrition survey, and could have considered transition issues and exit strategies more fully. The operation became measurably more efficient during the period under review, owing to a series of management initiatives that resulted in better accountability at all levels and lower operational costs. However, although service delivery improved, monthly delivery targets were rarely met, and project outputs were generally below planned levels, owing to poor rural transport infrastructure and severe damage caused by rainy seasons. It was difficult to assess the operation’s effectiveness, because an adequate monitoring and evaluation system was not in place, but the evaluation found that the impact was generally positive and significant. There was widespread agreement that the school feeding activity had been important in helping to: i) revitalize the education system in rural areas; and ii) encourage the return and resettlement of displaced people. Many participants in food for work had invested a portion of their wages in income-generation ventures, which had led to sustained increases in household income. WFP’s capacity-building efforts had helped to bring food security and nutrition issues to the forefront of policy discussion in Liberia. Future interventions should seek to address the causes of food insecurity and vulnerability directly. Interventions should be more clearly focused, to bring them into line with prevailing implementation capacities, and should address issues of transition and the phase-out of activities. Protracted relief and recovery operation and school feeding guidance should identify more clearly the different types of transition and appropriate indicators to guide the timing of the transition process. Nutrition activities should be refocused to address chronic malnutrition through an expanded mother-and-child health programme