1.1. Socio-economic indicators (wealth, health and education)

The indicator of human development (IHD) is the most synthetic of these indicators. It has been established for each country and gathers together the mean wealth per capita (real adjusted GDP per capita), health (life expectancy), and education (adult literacy). In figure 30, other than the IHD, three indicators that make up this index have been projected. The assumption is that the lower the IDH, the lower the mean wealth, the literacy and the average health state of the population will be while the vulnerability to physical hazards increases. Poverty is, as a matter of fact, one of the major vulnerability criteria. This has been evoked by the studies carried out by different authors of which one of them is NAZRUL ISLAM (1996, p. 381): "normally, the houses of the poors are the worst affected since they are built of weak materials and located on marginal and hazardous sites".

Despite the difficulties involved in evaluating poverty, which "shows a multiplicity of forms/expressions and goes beyond income insufficiency" (PNUD, 1977, foreword) and the limitations of the methods used, UNDP data reveal a contrasted national development of the GDP per capita between 1960 and 1994 measured in 1987 US dollars (PNUD, 1997, p. 178-180). Ambiguity is particularly evident for countries like Thailand or Vietnam since the increase in average income seems to have been accompanied by the development of a very low income-earning population. In their report, NGUYEN QUANG VINH & LEAF (1996) assert that: "the cities of Vietnam have been undergoing a tremendous change since the introduction of the doi moi policies in the late 1980's. One significant outcome has been the growth of informal popular housing settlements." For example between December 1992 and January 1994, the number of residents in the district of Xom Ma (Ho Chi Minh city) increased by 15%. The marginal districts of the former Saigon, that have shown similar demographic developments to those at Xo Ma are quite often subject to floods. High poverty areas therefore are the suburbs of capital cities, which nevertheless does not exclude distant rural areas. Estimates as to the latter areas are rare mainly because of the disinterestedness of the major ethnic groups in the territories occupied by culturally-different populations. Characteristically, the regions where the poors - which cannot dispose of at least 2100 calories a day - stand out for more than half of the total population, are mountainous areas where Viets are by far in a minority (DRAKAKIS-SMITH & DIXON, 1997, p. 30-31).

In other respects, poverty is associated with illiteracy and fatalistic mentalities as concerns risks, thus hindering prevention policies. Poverty has also an effect on housing which constitute a usually high damage percentage in case of disaster. The fact that it principally concerns precarious houses with low individual value, reveals even more the real significance of hazards. HODGSON (1995) underlines that mainly poor people lived in the 790,000 houses destroyed by the 1991 cyclone which devastated Bangladesh: "many of the victims worst affected were people living precariously on poor land, by river banks or on coastal flats".

These indicators as well as the birth and infant mortality rates, put on the same lines as the preceding ones, make it possible to establish a hierarchical organisation of the countries. Cambodia and Bangladesh are at the bottom of the scale while Thailand is the least hindered country. The other countries take up intermediary positions, the less favourable being those of Laos and Myanmar.

Fig. 30 - Socio-economic and demographic vulnerability factors (Source of data: PNUD, 1997 (data: 1994); Etat du Monde. 1997.)