Searching for General Principles to Guide the Design of Effective Disaster Mitigation Policy in Developing Countries: Part 1

The attempts it made to determine policies that effectively mitigate disasters and the averse consequences of disasters in developing countries. In the first part of this discussion attention concentrates on (i) issues concerned with the likelihood of providing timely accurate predictions of disasters and (ii) the weaknesses in the private formal and informal markets systems that prevent, or restrict attempts to insure against the risks associated with disasters. The discussion of (ii) in particular provides the foundations for determining the general form of effective disaster mitigation policies—a matter discussed in second part of this discussion.