|
<br />e
<br />
<br />e
<br />
<br />e
<br />
<br />ROO-l
<br />
<br />OMAR AGUDELO M.D" Director
<br />Center for Disasters Prevention - CEPREvE, National University of Colombia
<br />Carrera 50 # 27-70, Unidad Camilo Torres, Bloque B-8,Of. 206
<br />Santaf" de Bogota D.C., COLOMBIA, South America
<br />Telephone: (57-I) 3165116 ; Fax: (57-I) 3165000 Ext. 18430
<br />E-mails:cepreve@bacata.usc.unal.edu.co-omaragudelo@yahoo.com
<br />
<br />RISK AND SUSTAINABILITY IN LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRIES
<br />
<br />The "disasters" impact in Latin America and, specifically in Colombia, have created a concern which has evolved in
<br />very few years since the initial sensibility of the health field and the aid and rescue groups, up to the necessity of
<br />widening the profiles for study, analysis and answer towards the interdisciplinary opening oriented for prevention.
<br />
<br />The disasters of the Mexico Earthquake in September 1985 and the streams of mud generated by the eruption of the
<br />Nevado del Ruiz Volcano in Annero, Colombia, the 13th ofNovemher that same year, alerted the international
<br />community, the help and support organizations, and the national institutions, achieving to establish entities oriented
<br />to the permanent prevention and attention which have been developing like National Systems for Civil Protection in
<br />Mexico and for Prevention and Attention of Disasters in Colombia. Maybe, the main characteristic of these two
<br />systems, is their decentralizing character, starting from a main structure towards the state, department and municipal
<br />levels. However, the wearing out continues because of the economical conditions of most of our countries and the
<br />absence of prevention and planning within our cultures, the cap,acity of the systems at a local level tends to be
<br />inversely proportional to the vulnerability levels and lead the preparing actions for emergencies and assistance after-
<br />the events rather than the ones preventing and previewing.
<br />
<br />The knowledge developed over prevention and handling of disaster situations, has generated a change which leads
<br />us to assume them as the fact which puts in evidence the vulnerability degree of a certain social system, where the
<br />phenomenon by itself does not necessarily determine its result. If it is a fact that disasters occur in any latitude of the
<br />Planet, the characteristics, consequences and response capacity, vary depending on the region, the demographic,
<br />socio-economical and cultural structure, the environment, the development process and the historical moment in
<br />which they happen. The disaster is a fact that has happened already and the risk is an existent potential condition;
<br />therefore, we are oriented to the assumption of risk as a process where the "disaster" is only a moment of crisis in
<br />the dimensions and dynamics of such process.
<br />
<br />This reflection has led us to look in detail our three biggest and recent "natural" disasters in Colombia: Armero
<br />(1985), Sismo (earthquake) del Paez - Cauca (1994) and the Eje Cafetero Region Earthquake (1999), and the most
<br />recent in Central America and the Caribbean (George and Mitch Hurricanes, floods in Mexico, avalanche in
<br />Venezuela). We can conclude from all these that the dimension of the Impact caused by the event is linked directly
<br />with the level of economical development and welfare, the equity and sustainability of the Human Actions, and
<br />which is evidenced by the increasing levels of poverty, mis\1Se of the soils,lack of information and community
<br />participation, non - planned urban concentration, environmental degradation, increase of the physical _ structural and
<br />socio economical vulnerability of the regions, violation of rules and codes in construction and management
<br />corruption.
<br />
<br />All these leads us to insist on the radical modification of the newborn priorities of our National System and
<br />collaborate towards a new focus of the Systems in the Latin American Countries, taking advantage of the regional
<br />organisms like the G-3, Group of the Three (Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela) and the G-Rio, Group of Rio (21
<br />countries), to reorient the Government, Cultural and Citizens efforts towards mitigation (diminution of the different
<br />vulnerability factors), increase the Prevision (social perception of risk), overcome the limitations for preventing and
<br />attending disasters by the Risk Management and the Managing of Crisis, increase the empowering and local
<br />sustainability, control and interfere the different profiles of the Antropic Risk, stimulate the Prevention Culture,
<br />orient the process for recovery, increase the technical-scientific development and the generation of new knowledge,
<br />and establish within the culture, within the making of decisions and within the legislation, the Risk Management as a
<br />public value and a local power factor. Undoubtedly, these strategies must operate the criteria of sustainable
<br />development as a main factor for reducing risks and crisis situations and generate changes in practices and values
<br />which allow us to fmally arrive to the point of making disaster an illegality.
<br />
|