Search results

Ample literature is available on the impact of socio-cultural and political conditions on corporate social responsibility (CSR), but the reverse has not been adequately studied. COVID-19 pandemic disrupted humankind and business, but CSR was resilient. COVID-19, an unprecedented crisis, developed into a disaster but had some positives too. In fact, it championed the businesses' role and relationships between businesses and regulators, society, stakeholders, environment at large. Some available literature analyses how CSR metamorphosised itself and disrupted and converged into all similar and associated phenomenon like philanthropy, charity, governance, sustainability, and as a regular business activity. The present research uses mixed methods to analyse the CSR data published by the government of India during COVID-19 years and refer to the firms' disclosures in the CSR reports. Findings offer a nuanced input to the understanding of the impact of COVID-19 on CSR by studying it in a regulated environment where firms emerged as responsible corporate citizens attending to the needs of all the stakeholders. Firms acts of responsibility transcended law and contributed in form of funds (PM relief funds) and other necessary health equipment like PPE kits, oxygen cylinders, masks, sanitizers, vaccines, etc. Interestingly, the government amended the law to include contributions to COVID-19 mitigation as a part of CSR. While the current study is based on a data from a limited time, it lays a ground for future studies analysing the nature of shift (short term or long term) and how changes have impacted the policies (public and organisational policies).

The occurrences of disasters have become a common phenomenon in the world and there is evidence that the frequency and intensity of disasters are increasing. There have been more than 7,000 disaster events and around 265 million displacements in the period from 2008 to 2018, which constitutes more than three times of conflict and violence-related displacements (Disaster Displacement – A global review, 2019). Natural disasters are responsible for nearly 60,000 deaths per year on average and are responsible for 0.1% of global deaths. Various forms of natural disasters pose significant threats to lives, livelihoods, economic development, and ecological diversity around the world. Similar to the world scenario, Sri Lanka has a similar situation. Sri Lanka has been identified as a drought hot spot. Nearly, 15,000 people per million are at risk of disaster-induced displacement every year in Sri Lanka. During the Tsunami, in 2004, 31,000 human lives were lost, and more than a million people were displaced. Thus, natural disasters cause a huge negative impact on society and the economy in Sri Lanka. In this context, the main objectives of this study are to overview the disasters and displacements that have occurred during the last two decades and to explore the livelihood activities of the affected people and their best practices of disaster resilience. Secondary data were used to overview the disasters and displacements of the last two decades and the related policy framework of the country. Primary data were used to identify livelihood activities and disaster-resilient strategies of the affected people. In-depth interviews were conducted with an unstructured questionnaire from 15 recovered families who have been affected by Tsunami and landslides that occurred in the country. The purposive sampling method was used to select families from the most disaster-affected areas. Descriptive methods were used to analyze the data. The study revealed five recovery strategies followed by displaced people from tsunamis and landslides. Those are continuing with the previous livelihood activities as much as possible, moving to different livelihood activities, moving to different areas to find better jobs, attaining external assistance, and self-management on household finance. Finally, policy guidelines for building resilience in communities that will help to enhance their capacity to cope and recover from vulnerability are proposed in improving their lives.

Pakistan is one of the most climate change and natural disaster-affected countries in the globe, where the lives and livelihoods of people are repeatedly affected due to these natural disasters. Over the past few decades, the country has been impacted by numerous devastating floods, droughts, and storms. As a result, households face enormous complications, particularly those dwelling in disaster-prone areas. Therefore, this study intends to explore the status of household vulnerability and resilience practices of hazard-prone communities in Pakistan from existing literature. This study has identified the 17 most relevant documents. It argues that household vulnerability is increasing consistently with the increasing rate of disaster intensity. Frequent flooding, landslide, erosion, and crop loss are the leading causes of household vulnerability. This study reveals five types of household vulnerability components which look into several livelihood vulnerability indicators of Pakistani households. Moreover, the study unfolds that the main causes of disaster vulnerability are widespread crop loss, a lack of water, loss of soil fertility, and low socioeconomic situations. The major vulnerability components of dwellers are exposure (increasing summer duration, the rapid increase of population house build-up in the riparian areas, and increasing occurrence of hailstorms), sensitivity, low access to education facilities, human loss, diseases infestation, food insecurity, and social conflict), and less adaptive capacity (social networks, migration, poor emergency services, multiple income sources, and less access to the health facility). To address the household vulnerability, this study has also identified four key aspects of resilience, like social resilience, economic resilience, institutional resilience, and physical resilience. The findings will effectively help to understand the dynamics of household vulnerability and resilience and its measurement and management strategy from developed indicators.

Climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic are complex and have multifaceted effects on countries in an unpredictable and unprecedented manner. While both COVID-19 and the climate crisis share similarities, they also have some notable differences. Being both systemic in nature with knock-on and cascading effects that propagate due to high connectedness of countries, COVID-19, however, presents imminent and directly visible dangers, while the risks from climate change are gradual, cumulative and often distributed dangers. Climate change has more significant medium and long-term impacts which are likely to worsen over time. There is no vaccine for climate change compared to COVID-19. In addition, those most affected by extreme climatic conditions have usually contributed the least to the root causes of the crisis. This is in fact the case of island economies. The chapter thus investigates into the vulnerability and resilience of 38 Small Islands Developing States (SIDs) to both shocks. Adopting a comprehensive conceptual framework and data on various indices from the literature and global databases, we assess the COVID-19 and climate change vulnerabilities of SIDs on multiple fronts. The results first reveal a higher vulnerability across all dimensions for the Pacific islands compared to the other islands in the sample. There is also evidence of a weak correlation between climate change risk and the COVID-19 pandemic confirming our premise that there are marked differences between these two shocks and their impacts on island communities.

This chapter analyzes the link between the digital divide, infrastructure regulation, and disaster planning and relief through a case study of the flood in San Jose, California triggered by the Anderson dam’s overtopping in February 2017 and an examination of communication failures during the 2018 wildfire in Paradise, California. This chapter theorizes that regulatory decisions construct social and disaster vulnerability. Rooted in the Whole Community approach to disaster planning and relief espoused by the United Nations and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, this chapter calls for leadership to end the digital divide. It highlights the imperative of understanding community information needs and argues for linking strategies to close the digital divide with infrastructure and emergency planning. As the Internet’s integration into society increases, the digital divide diminishes access to societal resources including disaster aid, and exacerbates wildfire, flood, pandemic, and other risks. To mitigate climate change, climate-induced disaster, protect access to social services and the economy, and safeguard democracy, it argues for digital inclusion strategies as a centerpiece of community-centered infrastructure regulation and disaster relief.

This chapter presents a research study that examined post-disaster authentic university academic care resilience (PAUACR) at a Historically Black College and University (HBCU). PAUACR is a university’s and its students’ capacity to bounce back from post-disaster educational challenges. PAUACR requires a strong caring response and authentic academic care environments. For the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI), PAUACR following Hurricanes Irma and Maria was crucial to ensure students successfully completed the academic year. To assess UVI’s PAUACR, this study utilized a caring about academic caregiving inventory (CAACI). This 49-item instrument was used to gain students’ discernment of post-disaster authentic university academic care (PAUAC). The research employed a cross-sectional exploratory survey research design. The empirical analysis found associations between the structural workings of UVI’s academic caregiving in the aftermath of hurricanes Irma and Maria. These findings offer distinctive indicators of UVI’s PAUACR. Along with the findings, this chapter offers practical lessons of academic resilience drawn from the experience of conducting post-disaster research.

Drawing findings from the river erosion-prone district Bhola in Bangladesh, this study presents the nature and causes of human displacement and the types of resilience livelihood options for reducing risks caused by river erosion. The study used a quantitative research approach, in which a survey was employed. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews with 371 heads of households from three unions of three Upazilas (sub-divisions) in the Bhola District. Results showed that 95% of the households were displaced by river erosion, 54% of them were displaced two to four times in the last five years, 30% of the households were displaced to embankments, and 22% were displaced to their relatives’ houses. Nearly 70% of the households reported river erosion as a main cause and 42% referred other disasters. Regarding livelihood options, 47% of the households desired to engage in fishing labour, 44% in day labour, and 33% in independent fishing. During river erosion, 93% of the household members had to engage in income-generating activities, and one-half of them had to change their livelihood options. Finding new livelihood options and resilience strategies to reduce displacement would be an important guideline for disaster managers, policy-makers, and development practitioners.