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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.

Whenever social injustice tackled by social movements receives heightened media attention, charitable crowdfunding platforms offer an opportunity to proactively advocate for equality by donating money to affected people. This research examines how the Black Lives Matter movement and the associated social protest cycle after the death of George Floyd have influenced donation behavior for campaigns with a personal goal and those with a societal goal supporting the black community.

This paper follows a quantitative research approach by applying a quasi-experimental research design on a GoFundMe dataset. In total, 67,905 campaigns and 1,362,499 individual donations were analyzed.

We uncover a rise in donations for campaigns supporting the black community, which lasts substantially longer for campaigns with a societal than with a personal funding goal. Informed by construal level theory, we attribute this heterogeneity to changes in the level of abstractness of the problems that social movements aim to tackle.

This research advances the knowledge of individual donation behavior in charitable crowdfunding. Our results highlight the important role that charitable crowdfunding campaigns play in promoting social justice and anti-discrimination as part of social protest cycles.

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.

The transcript is of one from a number of interviews with disaster risk reduction (DRR) “pioneers” carried out in 2022 as a part of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) project to record the history of the field. It aims to enable one of the “pioneers” to explain his role in the emergence of disaster studies and provide critical commentary on what he considers is wrong with current DRR approaches.

Terry Cannon was interviewed to explain the beginnings of his involvement in disasters research and to comment on his views on progress in the field of disaster risk reduction since his early work in the 1980s. The transcript and video were developed in the context of the UNDRR project on the history of DRR.

The interview provides an account of the origins of the book “At Risk” and why it was considered necessary. This is put into the context of how the field of DRR has emerged since the 1980s. It elicits opinions on what he considers the gaps in both his early work (especially in the book “At Risk” of which he was a co-author) and in the field of DRR recently.

It provides historical context on how early disaster research developed the alternative framework of “social construction” of disasters, in opposition to the idea that they are “natural”. It challenges some of the approaches that have emerged as DRR and has been institutionalised, including its increasing difficulty in supporting the ideas of social construction.

The objective of this chapter is to discuss how different techniques in Regional Science and Peace Science and the emerging techniques in Management Science can be used in analysing Disaster Management and Global pandemic with special reference to developing countries. It is necessary for me to first discuss the subjects of Disaster Management, Regional Science, Peace Science and Management Science. The objective of this chapter is to emphasise that the studies of Disaster Management should be more integrated with socioeconomic and geographical factors. The greatest disaster facing the world is the possibility of war, particularly nuclear war, and the preparation of the means of destruction through military spending.

This brief is designed to inform disaster risk reduction and management in Philippine jails and prisons. It draws upon research conducted in nine jails and prisons between July 2015 and January 2016. This research included 44 interviews with stakeholders, including inmates and prisoners, and nine focus groups with inmates and prisoners in different regions of the country. The research indicates that natural hazards are one amongst the many threats that inmates and prisoners face in their everyday life. Natural hazards are significant because inmates and prisoners are particularly vulnerable. Inmates' and prisoners' vulnerability stems from a thread of proximate and root causes that range from insalubrious and overcrowded facilities and limited resourcing from the government, to the neoliberal nature of the Philippine state. However, inmates and prisoners are not helpless “victims” in dealing with natural hazards. They display a wide range of skills, resources and knowledge (i.e. capacities) that are grounded in everyday practices and values reflective of the broader Philippine society. This policy brief finally makes some recommendations for strengthening hazard prevention, fostering vulnerability mitigation, enhancing preparedness, and reinforcing disaster management in Philippine jails and prisons. These recommendations emphasise the contributions of a number of stakeholders, including the active role of inmates and prisoners who are the first line of defence in facing disasters in jails and prisons.

By inspecting the special connection between negligence and the causes of negligence, this study evaluates the reasonableness of negligence offenses elements from the perspectives of “modes” and “rules.” This study considers that in the core concept of negligent manslaughter in the Criminal Code of Taiwan, “business” comprises an outstretched legal element; thus, “application by analogy” or “customary laws” should be prohibited as a legal basis or when applying the criminal code because those are not allowed under nulla poena sine lege. Nulla poena sine lege must be respected to release construction professionals from material risks in their judicial rights and interests.

This study used data mining analysis with a database of 204 cases where construction professionals were involved in an accusation of gross negligence manslaughter (GNM) (N = 486) between 1995 and 2021 to explore the reasons and distribution of these cases in the construction industry in Taiwan.

The results showed that the main reasons behind lawful GNM accusations against construction professionals are as follows: (1) the violation of employers' duty of care to prevent hazards caused in workplaces where falling and collapsing are concerns during construction, thus resulting in death; (2) gross negligence during design, construction and supervision, causing damages after natural disasters such as earthquakes and typhoons.

This study discusses the whole life circle of construction, starting from planning, design, construction and completion. However, the involvement of other offenses such as providing false statements, forgery, embezzlement, unjust enrichment and fraudulent tax evasion or criminal responsibilities stipulated in the Building Act or administrative punishments are beyond the scope of this study. Future studies will focus on foreign “business GNM” cases from judicial precedents with similar backgrounds to Taiwan in the construction industry to verify whether similar conclusions can be drawn and to examine their differences.

This study applied data mining and data analysis to the data and explored potential causality and patterns of GNM cases in judicial cases. The results of the analyses can be used as evidence for potential causality and thus facilitate construction professionals' self-reflection and contribute to the sustainable development of working environments for construction.

This study agrees with the removal of GNM titled “business” in the Criminal Code of Taiwan to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the building industry. By doing so, national judicial and management systems will be in line with international standards, ensuring that everyone has equal access to justice.

Goal 16 of the SDGs by the United Nations aims to promote judicial equality, peace, justice and strong institutions. With this basis, this study collected and analyzed data in the field of criminal law and applied the theory of criminal offenses committed by negligence to real construction-related cases. This study especially discusses whether construction professionals were imposed with excessive responsibilities when a court enforced the “duty of care” that asked the professionals to bear the responsibility of results for events that should be and could be foreseen.

The dual epidemic of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV) in Sub-Saharan Africa has increased substantially in recent years, with cardiovascular disease representing a significant contributor to the regional burden of disease. Very little is known about the cardiovascular health of people deprived of their liberty in the region. The purpose of this study was to collate extant literature on the topic.

A scoping review mapped and described what is known about cardiovascular disease in prison populations in Sub-Saharan Africa. A systematic search of empirical literature with no date limitation was conducted in English. Sixteen studies representing six Sub-Saharan African countries (Cameroon, Nigeria, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Ethiopia) were charted, categorised and thematically analysed.

Seven key themes were identified: custodial deaths and autopsy; cardiorespiratory fitness and exercise; cardiovascular disease and elderly people in prison; cardiovascular disease and women in prison; dietary deficiencies; influence of sleep patterns on cardiovascular disease; and other associated risk factors. Most natural deaths at autopsy of custodial deaths were due to cardiovascular disease. Cardiorespiratory fitness was low in prisons, and poor sleep patterns and dietary deficiencies are likely contributors to the burden of cardiovascular disease in prisons. The needs of elderly and female prison populations are ill-considered.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first known attempt to scope extant literature on cardiovascular disease in Sub-Saharan African prisons. A strategic focus on the cardiovascular health of people in prison is warranted. Routine monitoring and expansion of existing prison health-care services and integration of NCD services with infectious disease (HIV and tuberculosis) programmes in prisons are required.