International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
2 pp., Costa Rica is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the World due to the tectonic interaction of the Cocos and Caribbean plates. Earthquakes, and other natural hazards, place major stress on the country's population, infrastructure and economy, and often result in the disruption of basic services. In response to this, the Government of Costa Rica is continuously working to build the capacity of technicians to design effective disaster risk management policies and investments to reduce seismic risk.
In the Eastern Caribbean construction of drainage networks in communities afforded an improvement in slope stability - after a 1 in 100-year rainfall event there were no landslides on previously unstable slopes in densely populated urban communities. This has been recognised in policy terms in the first ever Caribbean-wide, 5-year risk reduction programme. Such evidence represents an important first step in developing realistic land use policies for landslide-prone areas occupied by those migrating to urban centres in the Eastern Caribbean.
