Some Key Facts and Messages

The inequality of crisis:

some key facts and messages

June 2014

1. Extreme inequality makes countries more vulnerable to conflict and violence:

• 9 out of the 10 most unequal countries in the world are affected by conflict or fragility[i]
• Homicide rates are almost 4 times higher in countries with high levels of income inequality than in more equal societies[ii]

1. Disasters from natural hazards hit poor countries far harder than richer ones:

• 81 per cent of disaster deaths are in low-income and lower-middle income countries – even though they account for only 33 per cent of disasters[iii]
• 86 per cent of deaths from flooding are in low-income and lower-middle income countries – compared to 4 per cent in high income counties[iv]
• In 2010, Haiti’s earthquake cost the country 160 per cent of its GDP. In 2011, Japan’s earthquake cost 3 per cent of its[v]

1. Disasters from natural hazards kill more women than men, particularly in major calamities:[vi]

• In the Asian tsunami in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, 70 per cent of victims were women[vii]

1. Hardly any crisis gets the funding to meet everyone’s needs. But the amount given is extraordinarily unequal – driven not by need but in large part by unequal media coverage:

• For every $1 spent on a person affected by Haiti’s earthquake in 2010,[viii] 13 cents was spent on a person in need in South Sudan in 2013,[ix] 9 cents in Sudan,[x] and 4 cents in the Central African Republic[xi]

Ed Cairns 25 June 2014

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[i] Comparing UNDP’s Gini coefficient rankings and the OECD’s list of fragile states: and

[ii] UN Office on Drugs and Crime (2011) UN Global Study on Homicide:

[iii] UNDP and others, ‘Disaster risk reduction makes development sustainable’:

[iv] Oxfam (2013), ‘How Disasters Disrupt Development’:

[v] Ibid: based on estimated costs of $14 billion in Haiti and $200 billion in Japan, equivalent to 160 per cent and 3 per cent of respective countries’ GDP

[vi] E. Neumayer and T Plümper (2007), ‘The Gendered Nature of Natural Disasters: The Impact of

Catastrophic Events on the Gender Gap in Life Expectancy, 1981–2002:

[vii] Ikeda (1995) „Gender Differences in Human Loss and Vulnerability in Natural Disasters: A Case

Study from Bangladesh‟, in Indian Journal of Gender Studies 2 (2): 171-193

[viii] Dollars given per person in Haiti = total amount of funding given in 2013: $3.52 billion ( divided by 2.1 billion (rough estimate of number of people affected: ( = $1676 per person

[ix] Dollars given per person in South Sudan = total amount of funding given in 2013: $947 million ( divided by 4.5 million in need ( = $212

[x] Dollars given per person in Sudan = total amount of funding given in 2013: $625 million divided by 4.4 million in need ( = $145 per person

[xi] Dollars given per person in CAR = total amount of funding given in 2013: $162 million ( divided by 2.2 million in need = $76.36 per person