Beyond disaster vulnerabilities: An empirical investigation of the causal pathways linking conflict to disaster risks

From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, we see evidence of an ever tighter coupling between natural hazard-related disasters (?disasters?) and violent social conflict (?conflict?), but scholarship often focuses on conflict only as a consequence and not a driver of disaster. Disaster studies scholarship has established that conflict can create or exacerbate disaster vulnerabilities and that disasters and their impacts are concentrated in conflict-affected and fragile contexts. Yet, research at the intersection of disaster and conflict has not comprehensively investigated the causal mechanisms that lead from conflict to disaster beyond the creation of vulnerabilities, and in global policy and practice, conflict is conventionally considered outside the purview of disaster risk reduction (DRR). To better understand how conflict drives disaster risk, this research gathers qualitative empirical evidence from 32 indepth interviews with DRR experts in 25 conflict-affected countries across South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa experiencing diverse internal conflict conditions, from violent protests to civil war. The findings show that conflicts do not just comprise the context for disasters, but also contribute to disaster risk creation and amplification through diverse causal pathways related to hazards, exposure, vulnerabilities, and coping capacities, and do so at multiple institutional and temporal scales. This research provides a new foundation built on DRR practitioner expertise for more comprehensive and targeted DRR strategies and approaches in conflict-affected regions with the goal of ensuring that those experiencing the disaster-conflict nexus are not left behind by DRR programming.

Automated summary

This research delves into how conflicts drive the formation and amplification of disaster risk, gathering qualitative evidence from 32 in-depth interviews with DRR experts in 25 conflict-affected countries. It finds that conflicts not only serve as the backdrop for disasters, but also impact the occurrence and escalation of disaster risk through diverse causal pathways.