Sustainable Livelihoods and Vulnerability to Disasters

The project builds on earlier work on people’s vulnerability undertaken by DN and DMI that has explored the complexity of this subject. Vulnerability has many dimensions: economic, social, demographic, political and psychological. Vulnerability is not just poverty, but the poor tend to be the most vulnerable. The work by DN and DMI has highlighted the links between levels of livelihood security and levels of vulnerability to disasters. Ensuring livelihood security is an integral part of a sustainable approach to disaster mitigation, but livelihood support is largely ignored in disaster mitigation plans (ITDG 1999: 10-11).