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What is vulnerability. The term ?vulnerability" refers to proneness to damage from external forces. Vulnerability is shaped by (1) the incidence and intensity of the risk or threat (2) ability to withstand risks and threats (resistance) and (3) resilience, the ability to ?bounce back' and achieve s
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1. 1 VULNERABILITY and SMALL ISLAND STATES A REVIEW OF CONCEPTUAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES Lino Briguglio AIMS Regional Preparatory Meeting on the BPoA+10 Review 1-5 September 2003, Praia, Cape Verde UWICED 2002 University of Malta
2. What is vulnerability The term “vulnerability” refers to proneness to damage from external forces.
Vulnerability is shaped by (1) the incidence and intensity of the risk or threat (2) ability to withstand risks and threats (resistance) and (3) resilience, the ability to ‘bounce back’ and achieve sustainability in the long run. See A Future for small states: Overcoming vulnerability. Commonwealth report 1997, cited in Atkins and Matzi (1999), Small states: A composite vulnerability report. 2
3. Economic vulnerability Economic vulnerability is interpreted as the risks faced by economies from exogenous shocks to the systems of production, distribution (including and especially
markets), and consumption. …Economic vulnerability arises largely from the very high exposure of small states to
economic conditions in the rest of the world. ‘Vulnerability and Small island states,’ UWICED,(2002:53)
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5. 5 ECONOMIC VULNERABILITY (Cont) ? Dependence on strategic imports, in particular energy and industrial supplies, exacerbated by limited import substitution possibilities. ? Insularity, peripherality and remoteness, leading to high transport costs and marginalization. ? The small size of SIDS, which limits their ability to reap the benefits of economies of scale and poses additional constrains.The size variable should not however form part of the vulnerability index because it will bias the results in favour of SIDS
6. 6 ECONOMIC VULNERABILITY (Cont) In spite of their economic vulnerability, many small states do not register very low GNP per capita. This gives the impression of economic strength, and masks the fact that SIDS are fragile and dependent to a high degree on conditions outside the country’s control. This issue will be discussed further below in the context of “nurtured” resilience.
7. 7 ENVIRONMENTAL VULNERABILITY Environmental vulnerability addresses risks of damage to a country’s natural ecosystem. Small island states tend to be environmentally vulnerable, mainly due to: ? Limited assimilative and carrying capacity, leading to problems associated with waste management, water storage and other factors associated with small territorial size. ? A relatively large coastal zone, in relation to the land mass, making these states especially prone to exposure to waves, winds, and erosion.
8. 8 ENVIRONMENTAL VULNERABILITY (Cont) ? Fragile ecosystems, because of low resistance to outside influences. ? Proneness to natural disasters, including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, cyclones, hurricanes, floods, tidal waves and others. ? A relatively high proportion of land which could be affected by sea level rise. ? Economic development has relatively large impacts on the environment.
9. 9 SOCIAL VULNERABILITY Social vulnerability has been defined in terms of the extent to which the social structure of a community or a society is negatively affected by shocks, hazards or stresses brought about by economic strife, environmental changes, government policies or internal events and forces resulting from a combination of factors. In his work for ECLAC on social vulnerability, St Bernard (2002) also focuses on factors generated internally, relating to education, health, resources allocation and communications.
10. 10 SOCIAL VULNERABILITY (Cont) Social vulnerability, as defined above, is likely to occur anywhere, but the impact on SIDS may be higher, given the special economic and environmental vulnerabilities of SIDS, limited human capacities and given that a much larger proportion of the population is likely to be effected by social events. “ Social vulnerability is characterised by increased growth in criminal activities, growing rates of HIV/AIDS infection, growing rates of children dropping out of school, declining age of prison population, declining public health, rotting public infrastructure and migration of skilled professionals.” UWICED, 2002, see tables on migration from IMF and IBRD.
11. 11 SOCIAL VULNERABILITY (Cont) A Commonwealth Secretariat study concluded that small states have higher inequality than larger states and are more exposed to external shocks (Commonwealth Secretariat, 2000). This may be due to a widely dispersed populations in some small archipelagic island states, with a large percentage of income and employment occurring near the administrative centre. Deeper levels of rural poverty and inequality in the region exposes it to experience greater social, economic and environmental vulnerability but POVERTY not same as VULNERABILITY.
12. 12 SOCIAL VULNERABILITY (Cont) An important consideration is that while in the case of economic, environmental, climate change and disaster vulnerability the thrust of the argument relates to damage caused by external forces, and not the result of domestic polices, in the case of social vulnerability, there seems to be more emphasis on internal factors.
13. 13 CLIMATE CHANGE VULNERABILITY Small island states are generally located in the tropics and the subtropics in the Pacific and Indian Oceans and in the Caribbean Sea. The ocean therefore exerts a major influence on their physical, natural, and socioeconomic structures and activities. The economic and environmental vulnerabilities just outlined limit the capacity of small island states to adapt to future climate change and sea-level rise.
14. 14 CLIMATE CHANGE VULNERABILITY (Cont) The IPCC (WGII) Third Assessment Report on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability to Climate Change (IPCC, 2001: Chapter 17) concluded that “given their high vulnerability and low adaptive capacity to climate change, communities in small island states have legitimate concerns about their future on the basis of the past observational record and climate model projections”.
15. 15 CLIMATE CHANGE VULNERABILITY (Cont) The Report identified the following key issues among the priority concerns of small island states: ? Equity issues ? Sea-level rise ? Beach and coastal changes. ? Biological systems ?Biodiversity ? Water resources, agriculture, and fisheries ? Human health, settlement and infrastructure ? Tourism ? Socio-cultural and traditional assets.
16. 16 TRADE VULNERABILITY According to Assad Bhuglah (2002) several SIDS are facing major difficulties in their negotiations of accession to the WTO both in terms of financial costs and liberalisation commitments. They are being urged to undertake the same level of obligations as large countries and to make extensive liberalisation commitments that are much beyond their financial and developmental needs.
17. 17 TRADE VULNERABILITY (cont) Recent international developments are rendering SIDS more vulnerable than ever before. Both the WTO and developed countries have taken positive and concrete steps to help the LDCs but they are yet to recognise the precarious existence and vulnerability of SIDS. “WTO has been highlighted as one of the most costly, complicated and time-consuming processes at the international level, one which many SIDS have simply abandoned; of the 43 AOSIS Members, there are 20 full WTO Members, but only a few participate on a regular basis” UWICED 2002:52)
18. 18 TRADE VULNERABILITY (cont) Given the very high dependence of SIDS on trade taxes and on trade preferences, adherence to the WTO rules is likely to have lower net positive impacts on SIDS than on larger territories, assuming of course, the net result of free trade would be positive. The adoption of the WTO rules regarding subsidies are also likely to hit small states harder than larger ones, due to the relatively high per unit costs (mostly due to high overhead costs) of manufacturing in small states.
19. 19 TRADE VULNERABILITY (cont) Another source of trade vulnerability relates to dispute settlement arrangement. Many SIDS find it extremely expensive to bring cases and mounting a WTO defense in Geneva. Small states are seeking to achieve credible and binding SDT in the WTO given their high level of vulnerabilities,( economic, social and environmental), which are structurally rooted in high trade dependence, limited bases for competitive diversification and their compromised capacities to adjust.
20. 20 DISASTER VULNERABILITY Many SIDS experience natural disasters caused by cyclones (hurricanes or typhoons), earthquakes, landslides and volcanic eruptions. Although natural disasters also occur in other countries, the impact of a natural disaster on an island economy where disasters occur is expected to be relatively larger in terms of damage per unit of area and costs per capita, due to the small size of the country’s territory.
21. 21 DISASTER VULNERABILITY (Cont) In some instances natural disasters threaten the very survival of some small islands. Some of the effects of natural disasters on small economies include the devastation of the agricultural sector, the wiping out of entire village settlements, the disruption of a high proportion of communication services and injury or death of a relatively high percentage of inhabitants.
22. 22 DISASTER VULNERABILITY (Cont) As already stated, small islands have a relatively large coastal zone, rendering them particularly vulnerable to marine hazards. Due to the small land area of SIDS, a particular event often affects a large proportion of the population and a large section of the economy. For example tropical cyclones often devastate whole sugar plantations in the small island states of the Caribbean.
23. 23 DISASTER VULNERABILITY (Cont) These states tend to be less-diversified in their production and export structures and depend on a narrow range products. A given dangerous event, therefore, is likely to result in a higher degree of disruption, than is the case with larger states.
24. Impact of natural disasters 24
25. The present status of SIDS vulnerability 25
26. 26 VULNERABILITY AND RESILIENCE When discussing vulnerability, the issue of resilience often crops up. This term refers to the ability of an affected subject to recover quickly from a damaging impact. Resilience, as defined here, is also associated with the coping ability of the affected subject, with regard to the damaging impact. In climate change language it may be associated also with adaptation.
27. 27 VULNERABILITY AND RESILIENCE (Cont) Resilience may be inherent or nurtured. The inherent aspect of resilience may be considered as the obverse of vulnerability, in the sense that inherently resilient countries should register low vulnerability scores. However, nurtured resilience, namely that which is developed and managed, often as a result of some deliberate policy, should not be confused with inherent vulnerability.
28. 28 VULNERABILITY AND RESILIENCE (Cont) Here we refer to the “Singapore Contradiction” where an inherently economically vulnerable small state has managed to cope with this vulnerability through deliberate economic development policies. In this case the “ability to cope” was nurtured.
29. 29 VULNERABILITY AND RESILIENCE (Cont) Recently, there has been considerable debate on the issue of building resilience in SIDS. This issue is important because it carries the message that SIDS should not be complacent, even if inherently vulnerable. In other words they should adopt measures to step up economic, environmental and social resilience. In addition, the discussion on resilience sheds light as to why a number of vulnerable SIDS have managed to do economically do well in spite (and not because) of their economic vulnerability.
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31. 31 THE ORIGINS OF THE VULNERABILITY INDEX The concept of the vulnerability index was developed by Lino Briguglio during the second half of the eighties as it was felt that it was desirable to measure economic vulnerability, given that many small island states, including Malta, were registering relatively high GDP per capita scores, concealing their inherent economic fragility.
32. 32 THE ORIGINS OF THE INDEX (Cont) The construction of the index was first formally proposed, within the UN system, by Malta on 26 June 1990, during the meeting of Government Experts of Island Developing Countries and Donor Countries and Organisations, held under the auspices of UNCTAD.
33. 33 THE ORIGINS OF THE INDEX (Cont) When the General Assembly, at its 47th session, resolved to convene this SIDS Global Conference which was subsequently held in Barbados in April 1994, the vulnerability index featured prominently in the preparatory meetings and in Programme of Action (BPoA) for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States .
34. 34 THE ORIGINS OF THE INDEX (Cont) Paragraphs 113 of the BPoA stated that: "Small Island developing States, in cooperation with national, regional and international organizations and research centres, should continue work on the development of vulnerability indices and other indicators that reflect the status of Small Island developing States and integrate ecological fragility and economic vulnerability...”
35. 35 THE ORIGINS OF THE INDEX (Cont) The first peer reviewed paper on the Vulnerability Index was published by the present author in World Development of September 1995. Subsequently, the Commonwealth Secretariat and individual researchers, notably Tom Crowards, produced their own versions of the economic vulnerability index. During the late nineties, an Environmental Vulnerability Index (EVI) also started to be developed by SOPAC. At present there are attempts to develop a Social Vulnerability Index (SVI).
36. 36 METHODS OF COMPUTATION There are three basic methods for computing a composite vulnerability index: ? Method 1. Standardising the components. This involves summing the scores of the components of the index for each country. Since the components are measured in different units, summing these variables requires standardisation of the observations (Briguglio, Chander, Wells, Crowards, CDP). The formula used to standardise the variables is usually: Observed score – Minimum score, divided by Maximum score – Minimum score so that the range of standardised values is between 0 and 1.
37. 37 METHODS OF COMPUTATION (Cont) ? Method 2: Mapping on a categorical scale. This method is used by Kaly et al for the EVI. They take a scale of 1 to 7 and then they average the score of the different components for each country (EVI, Kaly et al, SOPAC) ? Method 3: The Regression method. This involves using the estimated coefficients as weights and taking the predicted values of the dependent variable as the composite vulnerability scores (Comm. Secretariat.)
38. 38 METHODS OF COMPUTATION (Cont) In what follows, we shall concentrate on the Economic, Environmental and Social Vulnerability Indices, which were developed with an interest in SIDS. Although many other vulnerability indices were developed, these will not be reviewed in this paper.
39. 39 ECONOMIC VULNERABILTY INDEX The economic vulnerability indices generally include a relatively small number of variables, often limited to three to five. One reason for this is that many economic variables are correlated with each other and one variable could be used to represent others.
40. 40 ECONOMIC VULNERABLE INDEX (Cont) The most frequent variables used as components of economic vulnerability indices relate to: ? Economic openness ? Export concentration ? Dependence on strategic imports ? Peripherality
41. 41 ECONOMIC VULNERABLE INDEX (Cont) The Committee for Development Policy (CDP of the UN ECOSOC) uses the following variables for its Economic Vulnerability Index: ? Export Concentration ? Instability of Agricultural Production ? Instability of Exports ? Population size ? Share of Manufacturing and Modern Services. The CDP index is used for the classification of LDCs. The component measuring population size renders this approach problematic for assessing the vulnerability of SIDS since this component would bias the results in favour of small states.
42. 42 ECONOMIC VULNERABLE INDEX (Cont) An important consideration relating to the economic vulnerability index relates to resilience. Briguglio and Galea (2003) constructed an index, which incorporates an economic resilience component, calling it EVIAR (Economic Vulnerability Index Adjusted for Resilience). They argued that a simple indicator of resilience is GDP per capita, because this variable captures a country’s material ability to cope with vulnerability. The attraction of GDP per capita is that it is readily available, and can be adjusted for purchasing power standard.
43. 43 ECONOMIC VULNERABLE INDEX (Cont) The EVIAR may help explain the “Singapore Contradiction” already referred to above, namely that we can have inherently vulnerable countries which, mostly though suitable policies, have succeeded in strengthening their economic resilience, and overcoming their vulnerability.
44. 44 ECONOMIC VULNERABLE INDEX (Cont) In its important contribution to research on the Vulnerability Index, the Commonwealth Secretariat uses GDP (and not GDP per capita) as a resilient component, assuming that the larger the GDP the better is the ability to cope. The problem with using GDP as against GDP per capita is that the results will be biased in favour of small states, leading to the conclusion that small states are less resilient by assumption – thereby begging the question.
45. 45 ECONOMIC VULNERABLE INDEX (Cont) All Economic Vulnerability Indices arrive at the conclusion that small states (most of which are SIDS) are among the most vulnerable countries. An expert group meeting held at the United Nations Headquarters in December 1997, after reviewing the vulnerability indices produced until then, concluded that SIDS, tend to more vulnerable as a group than other groups of countries.
46. 46 ENVIRONMENTAL VULERANILITY INDEX The Environmental Vulnerability Index (EVI) developed by Kaly et al utilises a large number of variables (54 in all) since, as argued by the authors, a large number of indicators are required for complex ecological systems. Each indicator was measured along a 7 point scale, where 7 represented the highest incidence and 1 the lowest.
47. 47 ENVIRONMENTAL VULERANILITY INDEX (Cont) Components of the EVI ? A sub-set of indicators to measure the Level of risks (or pressures) which act on the environment forming the risk exposure sub-index (REI) ? Another sub-set of indicators to measure Intrinsic resilience of the environment to risks (IRI) ? A third sub-set measure Extrinsic vulnerability, forming the environmental degradation sub-index (EDI) which describes the ecological integrity
48. 48 ENVIRONMENTAL VULERANILITY INDEX (Cont) Due to the fact that the index is composed of many sub-indices, many of which are not published in any international statistical review, progress with the EVI has been slow, inspite of the admirable effort of SOPAC. In fact, currently the index cannot be said to be operational, and although SOPAC published what it called a “demonstration EVI” for 235 countries, this can be considered as “work in progress” given that data were unavailable for 13 of the 54 indicators for all countries. This means that none of the countries attained the condition of the EVI that at least 80% of the indicators must be evaluated for a valid EVI score
49. 49 ENVIRONMENTAL VULERANILITY INDEX (Cont) The results of the “demonstration EVI” do not exhibit a tendency that SIDS are in general more environmentally vulnerable than larger territories, although, as stated, data deficiencies do not permit clear-cut conclusions in this regard. SOPAC has however indicated that it is working on finalising it in time for the August Mauritius meeting on the BPoA+10
50. 50 SOCIAL VULERANILITY INDEX (SVI) A call for the creation of the SVI has been made in the Singapore declaration of the Alliance of Small Island States during the Inter-regional preparatory meeting for the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Singapore from 7 to 11 January 2002.
51. 51 SOCIAL VULNERABILITY INDEX The computation of a social vulnerability index is still at a rudimentary stage. The main initiative in this regard has been taken by UN-ECLAC, and representatives of this organization have proposed the construction of such an index for the Caribbean region. ECLAC’S output in this regard associated with the work of Godfrey St Bernard. As far as is known by the present author, a global social vulnerability index to compare vulnerability scores across countries has not so far been produced.
52. 52 SOCIAL VULNERABILITY INDEX (Cont) The ECLAC’s SVI has 10 components: ? Education, with 3 indicators respectively measuring exposure to secondary and tertiary education level and adult literacy; ? Health, with 1 indicator, measuring life expectancy at birth; ? Security and social order, with 1 indicator; ? Resources allocation, with 4 indicators, measuring poverty and relating poverty to lack of primary education, lack medical insurance, and unemployment; and ? Communications architecture, with 1 indicator relating to computer literacy.
53. 53 SOCIAL VULERANILITY INDEX (Cont) In the case of the SVI, there are a number of conceptual issues that have yet to be resolved. These include: ? Should the index be concerned with poverty and factors that lead to poverty. In this case the term “poverty index” would seem to be more appropriate then “vulnerability index. ? Should the index be concerned only or mostly with internal forces or with damage caused by exposure to external factors, such as the globalization process.
54. 54 SOCIAL VULERANILITY INDEX (Cont) ? Should the index be based on the argument that once it is proven that SIDS are more economically and environmentally vulnerable than larger territories, than it follows that SIDS are also more socially vulnerable. In this case, the development of a separate social vulnerability index might not be needed.
55. 55 SOCIAL VULERANILITY INDEX (Cont) The present author is of the opinion that one approach to tackle these issues is to call this index a “socail resilience indicator”, on the assumption that countries that are economically and/or environmentally vulnerable due to their exposure to damage from external factors, will be less able to cope or bounce back if they are socially fragile – or conversely better able to cope if they are socially resilient.
56. 56 COMBINING THE ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIAL AND VULNERABILITY INDICES To date there has not been a serious attempt to create a super-composite index which combines environmental, economic and social vulnerability.
57. 57 WEAKNESSES OF THE INDEX There are a number of weaknesses in the currently developed Vulnerability Indices. These weaknesses are principally associated with: ? The subjectivity in the choice of variables ? Data Problems ? The weighting and averaging procedure ? The problem of aggregation ? “Political” aspects of pitching one country against another.
58. 58 WEAKNESSES (cont) Subjectivity. The subjectivity in the choice of variables is difficult to resolve. This problem can be minimised if the objective of the index is clearly spelled out. In the case of the vulnerability index, the present author has many times tried to define the objective of the index so as to: ? avoid using variables which reflect poverty or “under-development” (the objective is to measure vulnerability and not poverty); ? include only those variables which are related to inherent conditions, and not to self inflicted problems;. ? choose variables which reflect vulnerability, defined as proneness to damage from external forces.
59. 59 WEAKNESSES (cont) Data Problems. The most important problems are generally associated with the following: ? Lack or shortage of data ? Non-homogenous definitions across countries ? Unwillingness by the proprietors of the data to make this data available to third parties; ? Deliberate misrepresentations to advance the interests of the country providing the data ? In the case of environmental data, there is an absence of an international auditing agency to ensure consistency in the data (for economics data there are agencies such as the IMF and World Bank).
60. 60 WEAKNESSES (cont) Averaging and weighting procedure. The single value which is produced by a composite index may conceal divergences between the individual components or sub-indices, possibly hiding useful information: averaging would conceal, for example, situations where the effect of one variable cancels out the effect of another. In addition there is the problem of whether to take a simple average or a weighted average. In general, the weighting problem remains in the realm of subjectivity, with the simple average having a favourable edge on grounds of simplicity.
61. 61 WEAKNESSES (cont) Aggregation problems. An issue that often emerges in discussions on vulnerability indices relates to the level at which indices should be aggregated: national or regional. The Economic Vulnerability Index and the Environmental Vulnerability Index are pitched at the national level, thereby comparing large countries like China, the Russian Federation and the United States of America, with very small islands states.
62. 62 WEAKNESSES (cont) Aggregation problems (cont). To some this would seem to be a meaningless comparison. For example, in each large nation one is bound to find vulnerable and non-vulnerable regions, so that when aggregating, the average would not really represent the conditions in the individual regions. However, given that these indices are required to make a case that certain countries or group of countries are more vulnerable than others, country comparisons cannot be avoided.
63. 63 WEAKNESSES (cont) Aggregation problems (cont). One possible solution is to work out vulnerability indices at the regional level, so as to provide some sort of standard deviation from the national average. However there are two pitfalls in this regard. The first is that data is often difficult to obtain at the regional level. The second is that even regions have sub-regions with different vulnerabilities, which again have different sub-sub regions, and if this argument is taken to its absurd conclusion, it would be difficult to decide when to stop the disaggregation process.
64. 64 WEAKNESSES (cont) Political aspects. As stated Vulnerability Indices are generally pitched at the national level. This may create problems of a “political” nature, in that the results could pit nations against each other. This problem may lead to lack of political support from certain countries who do not receive high vulnerability scores on the index.
65. 65 BENEFITS OF THE VULNERABILITY INDEX There are many benefits associated with the production of a Vulnerability Index: ? The index can draw attention to the issue of economic and environmental vulnerability of SIDS, LDCs and other vulnerable countries ? The index presents a single-value measure of vulnerability based on meaningful criteria and this can be considered for the allocation of financial and technical assistance or for assigning special status to vulnerable countries
66. 66 BENEFITS OF THE INDEX (cont) The index has a number of additional benefits: ? It can support decision-making and can be useful for setting targets and establish standards, ? It can be used to monitor and evaluate developments and to provide quantitative estimates. ? It can help to disseminate information on the issue being investigated, namely vulnerability. ? It helps to focus the discussion, avoiding irrelevant digressions, given that the components have to be narrowly defined for quantification. ? Given that a number of components are involved, the index can promote the idea of integrated action.
67. 67 DESIRABLE ATTRIBUTES If the index is to receive support and if it is to be operational, it has to satisfy a number of criteria: ? Simplicity. One of the advantages of simplicity is ease of comprehension by decision-takers and other users of the index. It also permits replication by third parties for evaluation and verification. ? Affordability. This criterion is related to the “simplicity” criterion. Data must be relatively easy to obtain and to process. Preferably it should be collected as a matter of routine in line with the information required for the management of a country.
68. 68 DESIRABLE ATTRIBUTES (Cont) ? Suitability for international and temporal comparisons. The index of the type we are discussing in this paper (i.e. developed for the purpose of comparing scores across countries) must be based on variables which are measured in a homogenous manner internationally and temporally. ? Transparency. The index should be verifiable and reproducible by persons other than the original producer of that indicator. This will be essential for validation, evaluation and quality control purposes. This requires that the methodology used should be clearly explained by those constructing the index.
69. 69 CONCLUSION As stated, the Economic Vulnerability Indices produced so far indicate clearly that SIDS tend to be more economically vulnerable than other groups of countries. Understanding and measuring vulnerability should therefore be a priority for all SIDS, and should be done well, in line with the criteria just listed, particularly transparency. In addition, the building of resilience against vulnerability should therefore take centre stage in the sustainable development strategy of such states.
