There is growing international recognition that high economic exposure, remoteness, isolation and proneness to natural disasters all have a debilitating effect on small economies, despite the fact that some of them exhibit relatively high per capita incomes. This paper presents a Commonwealth vulnerability index that is designed to quantify vulnerability, and hence provide a means to identify vulnerable states. This index can be used as an operational tool in determining whether small states should be accorded differential treatment by the international community. It is intended as an additional criterion to augment other factors, such as per capita income, which are taken into account in reaching decisions on the treatment of certain developing countries by international organisations.

In all of the major challenges facing the world currently, whether it be climate change, terrorism and conflict, or urbanization and demographic change, no progress is possible without the alleviation of poverty. New approaches in development economics have in recent years started from the premise that we cannot successfully deal with poverty unless we also deal with vulnerability—but not only vulnerability to income poverty but also vulnerability to various others hazards—such as climate, conflict, macroeconomic shocks and natural disasters. This book provide insights into new approaches in conceptualising and measuring vulnerability. It includes chapters dealing with advanced issues such as the compilation of economic vulnerability indices (EVIs) on a macro-level, of conceptualizing and measuring local vulnerability across regions in a country, and of measuring the flip-side of vulnerability, namely resilience. The book also explores the sensitivities of the various measurements of vulnerability to vulnerability lines, poverty lines, and permanent income, with consideration to some of the most vulnerable groups in developing countries. Overall, the contributions in the book consolidate new approaches as far as the concept and measurement of vulnerability on different levels and outcomes are concerned, and note directions for future research. This book was published as a special issue of Oxford Development Studies.

There is growing international recognition that high economic exposure, remoteness, isolation and proneness to natural disasters all have a debilitating effect on small economies, despite the fact that some of them exhibit relatively high per capita incomes. This paper presents a Commonwealth vulnerability index that is designed to quantify vulnerability, and hence provide a means to identify vulnerable states. This index can be used as an operational tool in determining whether small states should be accorded differential treatment by the international community. It is intended as an additional criterion to augment other factors, such as per capita income, which are taken into account in reaching decisions on the treatment of certain developing countries by international organisations.

Raging floods, massive storms and cataclysmic earthquakes: every year up to 340 million people are affected by these and other disasters, which cause loss of life and damage to personal property, agriculture, and infrastructure. So what can be done? The key to understanding the causes of disasters and mitigating their impacts is the concept of 'vulnerability'. Mapping Vulnerability analyses 'vulnerability' as a concept central to the way we understand disasters and their magnitude and impact. Written and edited by a distinguished group of disaster scholars and practitioners, this book is a counterbalance to those technocratic approaches that limit themselves to simply looking at disasters as natural phenomena. Through the notion of vulnerability, the authors stress the importance of social processes and human-environmental interactions as causal agents in the making of disasters. They critically examine what renders communities unsafe - a condition, they argue, that depends primarily on the relative position of advantage or disadvantage that a particular group occupies within a society's social order. The book also looks at vulnerability in terms of its relationship to development and its impact on policy and people's lives, through consideration of selected case studies drawn from Africa, Asia and Latin America. Mapping Vulnerability is essential reading for academics, students, policymakers and practitioners in disaster studies, geography, development studies, economics, environmental studies and sociology.

While major strides have been made in the scientific understanding of climate change, much less understood is how these dynamics in the physical enviornment interact with socioeconomic systems. This book brings together the latest knowledge on the consequences of climate change for society and how best to address them.