ABSTRACT

The human security approach, first outlined in the 1994 Human Development Report (HDR), rejects the traditional prioritisation of the state, and instead identifies people as the primary referent for understanding security. The HDR identified seven categories of threat to human security: economic security, food security, health security, environmental security, personal security, community security and political security. This chapter explains how natural disasters relate to the human security agenda, and how such events interact with, and considerably exacerbate, existing inequalities and vulnerabilities. Human security can provide a valuable perspective that stresses the humanness of natural disasters. The chapter offers a reminder that understanding the human element of natural disasters is important for recognising vulnerabilities, and also for identifying responsibility and improving accountability. A human security approach to natural disasters suggests an awareness of the ways significant biological and sociological factors influence how safe people are, and what kinds of risks they are exposed to.