Abstract:
Vulnerability assessment and reduction are now central
to developing a holistic and integrated approach to
disaster risk reduction, including mitigating the effects
of a disaster. Pre-existing frameworks for mapping
vulnerability and planning response to disasters do not
completely fit the realities of rural communities in low
income countries where most people informally organize
their own livelihoods, resources, space, security and
response to disasters according to their needs and
capacities. Livelihood activities are undertaken to
satisfy needs. Hence, understanding needs of people
and communities in this context can help unravel
vulnerability and response capacity to disaster risks.
This paper therefore applied a needs-based approach
to explore and analyse the vulnerability of two rural
communities in northern Ghana to flood risk. A survey
was done, using a semi-structured questionnaire, to
collect data immediately after the flood in 2007. Based
on ranking of needs, the results show that survival
and security needs (mainly food, housing, education
and reliable income) were dominant before and after the flood. During the flood, however, survival and
empathic needs were more important. The results
also show the disconnection between institutional
frameworks for disaster management and the needs of
the communities and, therefore, show a scope for policy
and research in disaster management. However, in the
context of sustainability, economic needs (dominated
by income) were slightly greater than environmental
needs (dominated by drainage, water and sanitation and
relocation) which, in turn, were higher than social needs
(dominated by health and education). Interestingly, most
respondents indicated that a reliable source of income
was a prerequisite for satisfying social needs in the
short term and environmental needs in the long-term. It
is concluded that the approach used in this research is
simple, intuitive and easy to apply to map vulnerabilities
to disaster risk across multiple scales. It is also easy to
integrate into policy and management decisions about
disaster risk reduction
