ABSTRACT
Involvement in disaster by international, national and academic institutions has led to a number of implicit and explicit definitions of disaster. Several major sources of data provide global statistics on disaster. The best data available are from the League of Red Cross Societies and the Natural Hazards Research Group. A summary of the League of Red Cross data is available elsewhere. Emphasis is usually placed on the lack of integration between the rural, ‘traditional’, or ‘backward’ sector and the relatively ‘modern’, industrialised, or capitalist sector. It is argued that if the rural sector population would adopt the correct attitudes and entrepreneurial behaviour, the problems of underdevelopment could be overcome. The foreign domination is easily documented. Capital flows are one example: from 1950–65 the total flows of United States capital investment to underdeveloped countries amounted to $900 million, while the flows from these countries to the United States was $25 600 million.
