ABSTRACT
In the opening chapter of this book we set out to challenge three images of Africa. We argued that received wisdom was in danger of distancing imagined and lived experiences and distorting policy away from urban disaster risk reduction. We argued that Africa is a substantially urban continent, that its hazards and disaster losses are multidimensional and that there is a critical mass of indigenous energy and focus to tackle urban disaster risk reduction. The subsequent review and case study chapters have left little doubt that urbanization is of substantial and growing importance in shaping development trajectories and the environment-society relationship, and that disaster risk is indeed diverse and multilayered. Research from Accra demonstrates this most clearly with GIS techniques revealing the multiple environmental risk burden of the poor, and also that the poor in different parts of the city experience different combinations and priorities in environmental risk, shaped by livelihoods, access to basic needs and environmental conditions. The chapters in this volume have also shown the scope of opportunity and challenges for urban disaster risk reduction in Africa across the continuum from everyday through small to large disasters. Our third premise has proven most difficult to support. Certainly as Chapter 3 has shown there is a huge diversity of potential and application in disaster risk reduction activities, but the case study chapters highlight the difficulties of engaging with urban disaster risk reduction.
