TRIZ Challenge - April 2001
We challenge you to use your TRIZ skills and your knowledge to help solve a humanitarian or social problem. We hope that you will submit your results for publication in the TRIZ journal. Every few months we will set a new challenge - but that does not mean that you cannot continue to work on previous challenges, indeed you may have chosen to work on this for your project or coursework.
Send your results, ideas, comments and suggestions for future challenges to challenge@triz-journal.com.
This months challenge is on Natural Disaster relief.
In the 25 years up to and including 1991, the impact of ‘natural’ disasters such as earthquakes, floods, storms, volcanoes and drought were responsible for 4 million deaths and severely affected 2.8 billion people.
In 1998 alone, the worst year for disasters ever recorded, natural disasters affected 121 countries, claimed 60,000 lives and resulted in economic losses of more than US$90 billion - 96% of these losses occurred in developing countries. Statistics estimate that one billion people live in informal settlements and 40 out of 50 of the fastest growing cities are located in earthquake zones.
World-wide, a further 10 million people live under constant threat of flood, with 3 million being made homeless by flooding every year (IFRCRCS, World Disaster Report 1999).
The reality is that developing countries bear the majority of the costs of natural disasters, well over 90% of deaths from disasters world-wide are in these countries, and these countries are less likely to have the resources and ability to respond effectively.
As a result, governments and aid agencies are spending more and more money on helping disaster victims and repairing the damage caused instead of investing in long-term programmes that promote social and economic development.
To be truly effective, disaster prevention plans and actions must take into consideration these socio-economic and political causes of vulnerability. By ‘disaster prevention’ we mean preparedness for disasters, planning in order to mitigate the effects, and the interventions made as a result of these.
Often, despite these preparations, disaster relief is too little, too late. The larger the disaster, the more likely that this disaster relief will be inadequate.
You may remember the effect of Hurricane Mitch, or the recent earthquake in India. Both these covered areas greater than England.
This month's challenge is to consider how we can supplement the disaster preparation, and how when large disasters occur can we mobilise help.
Consider how people far away might use their resources - do they have to be 'on-site' to deliver aid? What are the common themes in most disasters, can we plan for these?
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Background information:
Hurricane Mitch: http://www.honduras.com/weather/
There are a variety of aid agencies that support such activities, a few of which are: