How do we prioritize when making decisions about development and disaster risk?

The document argues that development often exacerbates disaster risks due to poor decision-making and trade-offs. It introduces a typology of five trade-offs (power, equity, temporal, risk, and aggregation) to help decision-makers identify and manage these risks. The brief applies this typology to the 'Building Back Better' approach to post-disaster recovery, suggesting that inclusive, long-term, and holistic planning can lead to more resilient development.

• The document identifies five primary types of trade-offs in decision-making regarding development and disaster risk: power (who is involved and how power is shared), equity (distribution of gains and losses), temporal (short-term vs. long-term gains), risk (prioritization of different risks), and aggregation (macro-economic gains vs. disaster losses).
• The power trade-off highlights that inclusive, bottom-up decision-making processes often yield better results than top-down approaches, although inclusivity can reduce efficiency and face resistance from those in power.
• The equity trade-off involves the uneven distribution of benefits and risks, noting that in low- and middle-income countries, disasters disproportionately impact informal sector workers, low-income households, and small businesses.
• The temporal trade-off describes a predisposition to favor short-term gains over long-term resilience, often exacerbated by the use of high discount rates in cost-benefit analyses that diminish the perceived value of future losses.
• The risk trade-off emphasizes that risks are often prioritized based on social norms and beliefs rather than technical assessments, and that a lack of understanding of how citizens perceive risk can lead to ineffective policy interventions.
• The aggregation trade-off occurs when macro-economic indicators like GDP are used to justify projects that provide overall economic growth but increase local disaster, social, or environmental risks.
• When applied to 'Building Back Better', the typology reveals that while the approach offers a window of opportunity for resilience, it is often hindered by donor-driven, top-down processes that produce technically safe but inappropriate and expensive housing.

APA

Tuhkanen, H., Han, G., Rosemarin, A., & Davis, M. (2017). How do we prioritize when making decisions about development and disaster risk? Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Initiatives/TDDR_DB_Tuhkanen_Trade-off_typology_0517_lowres.pdf

Chicago

Tuhkanen, Heidi, Guoyi Han, Arno Rosemarin, and Marion Davis. How do we prioritize when making decisions about development and disaster risk? Stockholm Environment Institute, 2017. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Initiatives/TDDR_DB_Tuhkanen_Trade-off_typology_0517_lowres.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Tuhkanen |first1=Heidi |last2=Han |first2=Guoyi |last3=Rosemarin |first3=Arno |last4=Davis |first4=Marion |title=How do we prioritize when making decisions about development and disaster risk? |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=2017 |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Initiatives/TDDR_DB_Tuhkanen_Trade-off_typology_0517_lowres.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{tuhkanen2017how, author = {Tuhkanen, Heidi and Han, Guoyi and Rosemarin, Arno and Davis, Marion}, title = {{How do we prioritize when making decisions about development and disaster risk?}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2017}, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Initiatives/TDDR_DB_Tuhkanen_Trade-off_typology_0517_lowres.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }