Real Risk

efforts, the sector contracted by 52 per cent in 2005 (72 per cent

in the case of crops).

In the case of tourism most of the measures have centred on the

training of locals to improve their level of skills and on the diversi-

fication of the tourism product. Hurricane Ivan created a mismatch

between the demand and supply of labour, which had important

gender effects. Reconstruction activities required labour skills

(demand for skilled labour) that were not found among those who

lost jobs (supply of unskilled labour) due to the effects of the hurri-

cane.

Notwithstanding the devastating effects of the disaster, the

OECS/ECLAC report identified safety valves such as cruise ship

tourism, which if appropriately identified and managed could act as

buffer stocks to the general economic downturn. For 2005, tourism

contracted by 35 per cent with regard to the previous year. The

number of stopover passengers dropped by 4 per cent in 2004 and

by 27 per cent in 2005. Contrarily, the number of cruise ship passen-

gers rose 56 per cent and 20 per cent for the same years.

In terms of the social sectors, reconstruction efforts have been

fairly successful in the case of education and health. The World

Bank reports that at the beginning of the school year in September

2005, all secondary schools reopened on time and only 12 per cent

of all schools did not reopen. Most schools have by now been

restored. In the health sector, a greater part of the affected infra-

structure has been restored to its normal levels of operation, and

reconstruction activities involve the use of disaster resistant stan-

dards.

However, in the housing sector many homeowners have rebuilt

residential homes using the same materials that they used before

Hurricane Ivan. This left them as vulnerable as before to natural

disasters. In cases where different materials were used for construc-

tion, these include asphalt-based material, which can represent a

fire hazard. Thus government and agencies’ efforts to show people

the procedures they should follow in order to rebuild ‘better,’ have

not been very successful.

In the same vein, there are no discernible welfare effects of the

measures taken and policies implemented. Grenada is still charac-

terized by a social context that is not conducive to natural hazard

risk reduction. Grenada exhibits a high rate of unemployment

(currently estimated by unofficial sources at 30 per cent), high levels

of poverty (29 per cent of households are poor) and of poor house-

holds headed by females (42 per cent of the total), significant elderly

dependency ratios (32 per cent), with teenage fertility rates of 17

per cent. Moreover the country has a significant informal sector

where official rules and regulations do not apply.

The systemic devastation caused by Hurricane Ivan, the massive

donor response, the number of measures and policies put in place

to mitigate the damage and the lack of complete preparedness on

the part of the population to face such an event, make Grenada in

the hurricane’s aftermath a source case for the study of natural disas-

ters. From the available data and information we can draw several

lessons that can inform the type of policies needed for risk rehabil-

itation and reconstruction approaches to increase a country’s

resilience to natural disasters.

First, it is necessary to view natural disasters as a recurrent rather

than an isolated event. Although awareness of natural disasters and

risk is raised in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, these

concerns tend to subside with the passage of time. Ultimately,

natural disasters are conceived as a one-time, unlikely event. A major

question is how to incorporate the recurrent nature of natural disas-

ters into real risk analysis when the time frame for natural disasters

to recur far surpasses that of people’s decision-making horizon.

Second, once natural disasters are understood as recurrent events,

it follows that their effect can be cumulative. Rehabilitation, miti-

gation and risk reduction policies have yet to address and

incorporate the ‘natural disaster cumulative factor.’

Third, natural disasters create impending gaps between the need

for the skills required for reconstruction and mitigation purposes

and those available in the population stock. In the case of Grenada

the reparation of hotels, yachts and housing needed specialized

skills that were not found among those who were left without work

due to the impact of the hurricane (mainly unspecialized and

unskilled female labour). Training programmes and, more to the

point, improved skills must become part of any education policy.

Fourth, natural disasters have an inescapable gender dimension.

In the case of Grenada, at the time of the hurricane, more than half

of the labour population working in the tourism sector and more

than half of heads of households were females. However, females

cannot easily move as males do from the tourism sector to the

construction sector, which is generally the sector that experiences

high rates of growth in the aftermath of any disaster due to recon-

struction activities. Thus, policies must address the differentiated

effect of a natural disasters on men and on women.

Fifth, there are sectors (or sub-sectors) that are resilient to natural

disasters – that is, whose performance was not affected by the

occurrence of a natural disaster. In the case of Grenada, the activity

in the cruise ship sub-sector was unhampered by Hurricane Ivan

and in fact, the number of passengers actually increased during the

aftermath of the event. The Government must identify these hurri-

cane buffer-stock or safety-valve sectors. They can play a crucial role

in reconstruction activities – and in risk mitigation in general –

because these are the sectors that prevent the effects of a natural

disaster from being totally widespread.

Finally, policymakers, stakeholders and the general population of

a country must be cognizant of the fact that there are delays in the

implementation of reconstruction and risk mitigation measures and

policies. And more importantly, they must be aware that in general,

in developing economies there is a divide between policy design

and implementation, with the former far surpassing the latter. Thus,

the focus should be placed on the degree to which any given policy

design can be implemented and on ensuring that there are proper

mechanisms in place for implementation.

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The effects of Ivan on Grenada’s National Stadium

Photo: ECLAC