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There is no such thing as transitory vulnerability
17 July 2006
A lot of the literature on social protection contrasts chronic vulnerability with transitory (or acute) vulnerability. But this is a misconception, and one with dangerous implications.
Fundamentally we are all vulnerable, to a greater or lesser extent, all of the time. Think for example, of those who caught flights out of Boston’s Logan Airport on 11 Sept 2001, or those who were disporting on Pacific beaches on 26 Dec 2004, or those going about their daily business in Jogyakarta just a few weeks ago. We may be more or less vulnerable, and we may be more or less aware of it, and the level of our vulnerability may vary over time … but vulnerability is a permanent feature of our existence not a transitory one.
Where the concepts of “chronic” and “acute” do become relevant are: first, in the nature of the shock that interacts with people’s level of vulnerability to create disasters; and second, in the time it may take for people to recover from such disasters. The shocks themselves can be chronic (such as declining soil fertility, worsening exchange rates, poor governance) or they may be acute (such as floods, droughts, earthquakes). And people may take much longer to recover from very severe, or repeated shocks, because of the time taken to replace their lost assets, recover their livelihoods, etc. This in turn may make them more vulnerable to other short or longer term hazards (or a repetition of the same one) in the meantime.
To illustrate this, someone living 10 metres from a river has a higher degree of risk that his house will be washed away in a flood than someone living 50 metres away. Both are vulnerable to acute shocks (flooding) and to chronic shocks (global warming), and they may take different lengths of time to recover from either type of shock (longer time for the floodwaters to recede, more of the house to rebuild). But the difference in the nature of their vulnerability is one of degree, not duration.
Why does this matter? It matters because “transitory vulnerability” is often used as shorthand for vulnerability to short term hazards, and “chronic vulnerability” as vulnerability to longer term ones. The main problem with this is that the response to so-called “transitory vulnerability” tends to be transitory measures that do little to address what is actually a long term problem. For example the provision of emergency food aid is seen as a response to “transitory vulnerability”. But it is a response which may be wholly inappropriate, and which may even, in some circumstances, be counterproductive by undermining people’s livelihoods thus making them more vulnerable. In other words it masks the fact that more frequent and severe short term crises reflect a longer term deepening of vulnerability.
Appropriate social protection measures, on the other hand, can help to reduce the level of people’s vulnerability, and can accelerate the recovery period from severe or repeated shocks. It is this approach that RHVP is trying to promote within southern Africa.
If we cannot even present the problem right, how can we expect to get the answer right?
Image Credit: More Altitude
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