Wading Out the Storm : The Role of Poverty in Exposure, Vulnerability and Resilience to Floods in Dar es Salaam
Dar es Salaam is frequently affected by severe flooding causing destruction and impeding daily life of its 4.5 million inhabitants. The focus of this paper is on the role of poverty in the impact of floods on households, focusing on both direct (da...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/788241565625141093/Wading-Out-the-Storm-The-Role-of-Poverty-in-Exposure-Vulnerability-and-Resilience-to-Floods-in-Dar-Es-Salaam http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32269 |
| Summary: | Dar es Salaam is frequently affected by
severe flooding causing destruction and impeding daily life
of its 4.5 million inhabitants. The focus of this paper is
on the role of poverty in the impact of floods on
households, focusing on both direct (damage to or loss of
assets or property) and indirect (losses involving health,
infrastructure, labor, and education) impacts using
household survey data. Poorer households are more likely to
be affected by floods; directly affected households are more
likely female-headed and have more insecure tenure
arrangements; and indirectly affected households tend to
have access to poorer quality infrastructure. Focusing on
the floods of April 2018, affected households suffered
losses of 23 percent of annual income on average.
Surprisingly, poorer households are not over-represented
among the households that lost the most - even in relation
to their income, possibly because 77 percent of total losses
were due to asset losses, with richer households having more
valuable assets. Although indirect losses were relatively
small, they had significant well-being effects for the
affected households. It is estimated that households’ losses
due to the April 2018 flood reached more than US$100
million, representing between 2-4 percent of the gross
domestic product of Dar es Salaam. Furthermore, poorer
households were less likely to recover from flood exposure.
The report finds that access to finance play an important
role in recovery for households. |
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