Is your country ready for a catastrophe?

How ready is your country to face a massive change? Today’s needull looks at this critical aspect.

Stiles compares the experience of Haiti in 2010 with Chile, which experienced an 8.8-magnitude earthquake soon after. More than 90% of Chile’s population lost power and thousands of homes were destroyed by a tsunami. But, within three months, the country’s stock market and consumer confidence was back to pre-disaster levels, and economic growth seemed unaffected, he says. Haiti, by contrast, had a loss of more than 5% of GDP in 2010. “Haiti struggled to rebound from the earthquake, hampered by weak government structures, poorly coordinated humanitarian response and loss of key personnel,” he says. Haiti now stands at 123rd in the index, compared to Chile’s 24th place ranking.

Though the top performers are all rich countries, several lower and middle-income nations punch above their weight. Rwanda, officially a “low income” country, is in 46th place ahead of high-income economies like Greece (54th) and plenty of upper middle- and lower-middle-income countries, including Turkey and Mexico.