Learning from Mega Disasters

International Workshop for Knowledge Learning and Sharing from Mega Disasters

World Bank, Tokyo, Japan

17-18 January, 2012

 

Dr. Mimi Sheller, Drexel Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, joined a team of international experts invited by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute to provide advice to the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) on lessons emerging from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 for developing countries. The team of 12 experts from the USA, Canada, China, India, Turkey and the UK convened at the World Bank Headquarters in Tokyo on January 17th-18th, 2012, to meet with senior development and risk managements specialists from the World Bank Institute, high level government representatives from several Ministries of the Government of Japan, and Japanese academics and NGO’s.

A second meeting will take place in May. The final report will be presented at the IMF/World Bank annual meeting, which will take place in Sendai, Japan in October 2012, conveying the findings to all of their member states. Topics covered in the meeting included structural and non-structural (social) risk reduction measures, emergency response and preparedness, the recovery process and reconstruction planning, improving hazard and risk information and decision making, and the economics of disaster risk management and financing.

Dr. Mimi Sheller

 

Haiti Two Years After the Earthquake

Knowledge Sharing from Mega Disasters

Drexel Professor of Sociology and mCenter Director Mimi Sheller will be joining a small team of international experts who have been invited by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute to provide advice to the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction and Recovery on lessons emerging from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami for developing countries. In that capacity Sheller will be going to Tokyo from January 14^th-19^th, 2012, along with 10 experts from the USA, Canada, China, India, Turkey and the UK to meet with Japanese researchers and government representatives. A second meeting including  experts from Turkey, Peru and Iran will take place later in the year. The team will be writing Knowledge Notes for the World Bank, conveying lessons on disaster response and recovery that will guide and influence its actions in countries like Haiti. For the first publication in this series see the GFDRR’s Earthquake Reconstruction Knowledge Notes.

Haiti Two Years Later

It is now two years since the terrible earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12^th, 2010. Despite the promises of “building back better”, little reconstruction has taken place there. At least half a million people are still living in minimal shelters in what were meant to be temporary camps. Little of the promised reconstruction money has actually been spent. For some important updates on the situation, see some of the following sites:

Two Years Later, Where Is The Outrage? By Melinda Miles, Let Haiti Live Founder and Director, Lethaitilive.org

Haiti After the Quake: Where the Relief Money Did and Did Not Go by BILL QUIGLEY and AMBER RAMANAUSKAS

Our Drexel research team has been writing up and publishing findings, and is planning a return trip to Haiti in the summer of 2012 to distribute a final report on the project, disseminate recommendations, and determine future plans of action in collaboration with Haitian partners. Following up on NSF Haiti-RAPID Award #1032184 ‘Supporting Haitian Infrastructure Reconstruction with Local Knowledge’, with PI Franco Montalto and Co-PIs Patrick Gurian, Michael Piasecki, and Mimi Sheller, we have submitted the following articles:

HC Galada, PL Gurian, FA Montalto, M Sheller, M Piasecki, T Ayalew, S O’Connor: Restructuring in the Midst of Disaster: Post-Earthquake Water and Sanitation Management and Payment Options for Leogane, Haiti, submitted to Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management.

M Sheller, S O’Connor, HC Galada, FA Montalto, PL Gurian, M Piasecki: Participatory Engineering for Recovery in Post-Earthquake Haiti, submitted to Engineering Studies, Special Issue on Engineering Risk and Disaster, eds. SG Knowles and G Downey.

HC Galada, FA Montalto, PL Gurian, M Sheller, M Piasecki, T Ayalew, S O’Connor: Transitions to Sustainable Sanitation Infrastructure in post-earthquake Leogane, Haiti: Including Stakeholder Preferences, Haiti, submitted to Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 2013, Special Issue: Geographies of Water.

Further Publications

In related developments, mCenter Director Mimi Sheller has had the following article accepted for publication: M Sheller, The Islanding Effect: Post-Disaster Mobility Systems and Humanitarian Logistics in Haiti, accepted for Cultural Geographies, special issue on Islanding Geographies, eds. Eric Clark and Godfrey Baldaccino.

If you would like continuing news on our project, please join our 347 Twitter followers @HaitiWater where we continue to post news relating to water, sanitation, and overall reconstruction efforts in Haiti.

Also see the Special Issue of Earthquake Spectra on the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, published by EERI.

We also strongly recommend the new book: Tectonic Shifts: Haiti Since the Earthquake (Kumarian Press, 2012) Edited by Mark Schuller ,  Pablo Morales