(An item from ISHN Member information service) An article in Issue #4, 2012 of Disaster provides an excellent overview of the costs, cost effectiveness and cost-benefits of disaster preparedness. Schools are part of the discussion. The article notes that "Some 60,000 people worldwide die annually in natural disasters, mostly due to the collapse of buildings in earthquakes, and primarily in the developing world. This is despite the fact that engineering solutions exist that can eliminate almost completely the risk of such deaths". The solutions are expensive and technically demanding, so their cost–benefit ratio often is unfavourable as compared to other interventions. Nonetheless, there are various public disaster risk reduction interventions that are highly cost-effective. That such interventions frequently remain unimplemented or ineffectively executed points to a role for issues of political economy. The article goes on to examine the cost-benefits of retrofitting or building safer schools and even compares those strategies with simpler and less expensive ways to save lives such as malaria control, sanitation and other public health interventions. For the full text of the article, read more
Building regulations in developing countries appear to have limited impact in many cases, perhaps because of inadequate capacity and corruption. Public construction often is of low quality, perhaps for similar reasons. This suggests the need for approaches that emphasise simple and limited disaster risk regulation covering only the most at-risk structures—and that, preferably, non-experts can monitor—as well as numerous transparency and oversight mechanisms for public construction projects. The authors also note that "Worldwide, in the absence of legal requirements, individuals are unlikely to take even fairly simple steps to reduce disaster risk. At the community level, public expenditure on disaster prevention sometimes is deeply unpopular from a political standpoint. Since building collapse is the primary cause of human and economic cost after a disaster, the authors calculate a cost-benefit ratio of preparedness.
With respect to these uncertainties and debates, looking first at strengthening/ retrofitting costs, initial construction using designs that are less likely to collapse in an earthquake adds to the building cost. One recent estimate for school buildings in a developing country is around eight per cent (Bahatia, 2008a), but costs are likely to vary considerably depending on building type and the level of protection desired. The authors note that their cost-benefit revolves primarily around loss of life in earthquakes but other disasters, such as floods, cause much more property damage and therefore initial economic cost and likely longer term human misery.
The article contains an analysis of school preparedness. The authors note that "Furthermore, despite undoubted benefits to resistant school construction, for instance, it is worth comparing the cost of resistant construction to school budgets in developing countries. If school retrofit/earthquake-proof construction comes at the cost of building fewer schools and excluding girls and boys from education, the long-term health effects of such construction may even be negative (see the annex). It is worth noting that even while as many as some 2,500 children worldwide die each year in school collapses, more than 10 million children under the age of five die each year from other causes before they can even make it to school—and the majority of those deaths can be prevented easily and cheaply. In areas of very high earthquake risk, where cheap engineering solutions are available, the benefit–cost ratio of such projects can look very good. If the risk of an earthquake is lower, or the costs higher, retrofitting in particular may look less attractive than other methods of improving child health. This is especially the case where overall levels of child health are poor, and particularly in cases where earthquake proofing will come at the expense of additional school construction and the exclusion of children from education opportunities. A more detailed analysis based on school retrofitting in Istanbul suggested that the programme would make sense at a value of USD 400,000 per life saved.
Compare this number to education expenditures in poor countries: ‘discretionary’ expenditure—money left over after paying teachers’ salaries that is used to cover supplies,
teaching equipment, utility bills, building maintenance and construction—is as low as USD 5 per year per primary student per year in many low-income countries (Grace
and Kenny, 2003). If the average school size is 100 children, this suggests retrofitting alone would be equal to 16 years of a school’s total discretionary expenditure in many
poor countries. This expenditure will actually benefit only a small proportion of the schools that embark on it (preventing collapse that otherwise would have occurred).
Perhaps more to the point, it is worth comparing the costs of improved school building safety to a number of other efforts to enhance health outcomes in developing
countries, which, as we have seen, may save lives at far lower costs. When we add in the relative simplicity of the health interventions compared to the complex engineering often required for retrofitting, likely benefits appear to favour ever more heavily health expenditures over retrofitting.
The above analysis does highlight, however, the potential importance of an initial focus on the most vulnerable schools and buildings, alongside those buildings that are most vital in the aftermath of a disaster (not least hospitals) as well as recognition of the tradeoffs involved with respect to expenditure on retrofitting or robust construction.
It suggests, too, the importance of an initial focus on the most efficient disaster risk reduction measures, which may involve disaster planning, emergency communications and public infrastructure measures rather than retrofitting of individual buildings. For the full text of the article, Read More.
With respect to these uncertainties and debates, looking first at strengthening/ retrofitting costs, initial construction using designs that are less likely to collapse in an earthquake adds to the building cost. One recent estimate for school buildings in a developing country is around eight per cent (Bahatia, 2008a), but costs are likely to vary considerably depending on building type and the level of protection desired. The authors note that their cost-benefit revolves primarily around loss of life in earthquakes but other disasters, such as floods, cause much more property damage and therefore initial economic cost and likely longer term human misery.
The article contains an analysis of school preparedness. The authors note that "Furthermore, despite undoubted benefits to resistant school construction, for instance, it is worth comparing the cost of resistant construction to school budgets in developing countries. If school retrofit/earthquake-proof construction comes at the cost of building fewer schools and excluding girls and boys from education, the long-term health effects of such construction may even be negative (see the annex). It is worth noting that even while as many as some 2,500 children worldwide die each year in school collapses, more than 10 million children under the age of five die each year from other causes before they can even make it to school—and the majority of those deaths can be prevented easily and cheaply. In areas of very high earthquake risk, where cheap engineering solutions are available, the benefit–cost ratio of such projects can look very good. If the risk of an earthquake is lower, or the costs higher, retrofitting in particular may look less attractive than other methods of improving child health. This is especially the case where overall levels of child health are poor, and particularly in cases where earthquake proofing will come at the expense of additional school construction and the exclusion of children from education opportunities. A more detailed analysis based on school retrofitting in Istanbul suggested that the programme would make sense at a value of USD 400,000 per life saved.
Compare this number to education expenditures in poor countries: ‘discretionary’ expenditure—money left over after paying teachers’ salaries that is used to cover supplies,
teaching equipment, utility bills, building maintenance and construction—is as low as USD 5 per year per primary student per year in many low-income countries (Grace
and Kenny, 2003). If the average school size is 100 children, this suggests retrofitting alone would be equal to 16 years of a school’s total discretionary expenditure in many
poor countries. This expenditure will actually benefit only a small proportion of the schools that embark on it (preventing collapse that otherwise would have occurred).
Perhaps more to the point, it is worth comparing the costs of improved school building safety to a number of other efforts to enhance health outcomes in developing
countries, which, as we have seen, may save lives at far lower costs. When we add in the relative simplicity of the health interventions compared to the complex engineering often required for retrofitting, likely benefits appear to favour ever more heavily health expenditures over retrofitting.
The above analysis does highlight, however, the potential importance of an initial focus on the most vulnerable schools and buildings, alongside those buildings that are most vital in the aftermath of a disaster (not least hospitals) as well as recognition of the tradeoffs involved with respect to expenditure on retrofitting or robust construction.
It suggests, too, the importance of an initial focus on the most efficient disaster risk reduction measures, which may involve disaster planning, emergency communications and public infrastructure measures rather than retrofitting of individual buildings. For the full text of the article, Read More.
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