PreventionWeb.net
Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2011
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development
  Previous  pageNext page 
 

8.3 Leverage existing development instruments and mechanisms

While DRM has conventionally been delivered through stand-alone projects and programmes, a number of governments are now adapting existing development mechanisms and instruments to reduce risks and strengthen resilience. These include public investment planning, social protection and ecosystem-based approaches. Although many of these innovations are incipient, they hold the promise of addressing underlying risk drivers, and simultaneously generating co-benefits for multiple stakeholders. These mechanisms may build on existing institutional capacities, which should offer powerful incentives for governments.

8.3.1 Factor disaster risk into public investments and development plans

Factoring disaster risk considerations into national planning and public investment decisions can radically scale up risk reduction. This is due to the large scale and targeted focus of public investment in many low- and middle-income countries and many low-income communities of other countries, making them a particularly strategic entry point for addressing risk drivers.

Co-benefits include enhanced social and economic development, such as fewer schools or roads damaged in floods and earthquakes, and improvements in the quality, coherence and sustainability of public spending. Whereas a number of countries have already factored disaster risk into the evaluation of public investment projects, far greater benefits could be achieved if it is also included further upstream in the national planning cycle, i.e., development, sector and land use planning.

Above all, it is essential that drought risk be fully factored into national development, requiring a high-level policy and planning framework that addresses the many competing uses of water and the decline of available water resources. Strengthened local governance, including partnerships between governments, the water sector and water users, is similarly vital to address conflicting demands for water at the sub-national level.

8.3.2 Employ social protection to reduce vulnerability and buffer losses

Many countries are already making huge investments in social protection through instruments such as structural conditional cash transfers and temporary employment programmes. They increase the disaster resilience of risk-prone households, and the criteria for receiving such cash transfers can be modified when a disaster is forecast or in areas that are exposed to recurring hazards. They could also be given to non-poor households that are likely to become poor if they were to suffer disaster losses. Temporary employment programmes provide additional household income and can be used after disasters or to offset predicted events such as seasonal droughts. Bundling micro-insurance with micro-finance and other loans is an additional complementary source of social protection, and they can be adapted to generate specific incentives for DRM in businesses and at the household level. These instruments can reach out to millions of risk-prone households using existing institutional structures and mechanisms, reducing poverty and vulnerability at the same time.

8.3.3 Recognize the value of healthy ecosystems

For reducing disaster risk, the protection, restoration and enhancement of ecosystems such as forests, wetlands and mangroves can be much more attractive in terms of cost–benefit ratios than ‘conventional’ hard engineering solutions. Also, ‘greening’ cities – by planting trees and roof gardens, and increasing the permeability of paved surfaces – may be a more cost-effective means of reducing urban flooding than expensive investments that increase storm drainage capacity. In addition, such ‘green’ solutions can also improve groundwater availability and reduce summer temperatures, generating important energy savings during peak consumption periods. Similarly, restoring wetlands can be a less expensive way to mitigate flood hazard than constructing additional river defence walls, while also increasing the supply of water, improving biodiversity and providing livelihood opportunities in fishing and tourism.

Instruments and methods for using ecosystem management for DRM include protected area legislation, integrated planning, ecosystem accounting and payment for ecosystem services. At present, the principal obstacles against more widespread adoption of such instruments remain the undervaluation of ecosystem services and associated co-benefits, partly due to data scarcity and a lack of understanding by planners and professionals in the construction and engineering sectors.

8.3.4 Adopt a participatory approach to planning and regulations

Most low- and middle-income countries have policies, legislation and capacities related to urban planning, management and building regulations. However, using such instruments for DRM has proved to be a challenge, particularly where a large proportion of urban development occurs in the informal sector. What is required is the adoption of a culture of planning and regulation based on partnerships and joint ownership, between local and central governments, risk-prone households and communities and organizations that represent them.

National laws should stipulate local government responsibility for planning and control while ensuring adequate resources to plan and regulate development. Laws can be strengthened by explicitly acknowledging and endorsing the responsibilities of civil society, community representatives, and mechanisms that can be used to promote partnership and dialogue. These mechanisms include participatory budgeting in which low-income households, their organizations and other stakeholders are involved. Processes include establishing investment priorities, negotiation of more flexible planning and building standards appropriate to the needs of low-income households, negotiated processes to identify land and secure tenure, and joint planning and implementation of settlement and infrastructure upgrading. Regulations that require less government oversight and which become engrained in local planning and building practices represent another opportunity. For example, simple building codes and processes coupled with education on safe building practices can go a long way to improve the safety of housing.

In many low- and middle-income countries, a participatory approach should be adopted by necessity and not just by conviction. It represents the most cost-effective and sustainable mechanism for reducing urban risks, while at the same time facilitating poverty reduction, and a more constructive relationship between civil society and government.

8.4 Strengthen risk governance

Using development mechanisms and instruments for DRM requires a reform of many existing risk governance arrangements. This requires increased political authority and policy coherence in central government, competent and accountable local governments, and the willingness of governments to work in partnership with civil society, particularly with lowincome households and communities.

8.4.1 Place responsibility for DRM within strong central institutions

In central government, overall responsibility for DRM and also climate change adaptation should be placed in a ministry or office with the political authority to ensure policy coherence across development sectors. The full integration of DRM into all sectors and local public investment must be ensured through assessments, planning and budgeting. Such arrangements would mean that the responsible body, such as a central planning or finance ministry, for example, is not also tasked with delivery. Practical disaster management may remain a responsibility of a civil protection or emergency management office, social protection would remain anchored in a social ministry, and so on.

National disaster risk reduction policy frameworks are rarely based on comprehensive national risk assessments, and thus do not provide the kind of focused goals, targets and benchmarks that assist in implementation, monitoring and enforcement. A national policy, if based on a stratification of DRM, can provide a broader framework for development planning and public investment decisions, including risk financing, social protection strategies, and sector policies, plans and programmes. If the policy framework is owned by an office or ministry with strong political and economic leverage, it will have a better chance of delivery.

8.4.2 Decentralize responsibility, capacities and resources in tandem

Competent and accountable local government is a precondition for effective DRM. Unless local governments have the capacities and resources to fulfil their functions, decentralization of responsibilities may be counter-productive. In decentralization processes, more attention needs to be paid to the appropriate layering of functions, where higher administrative levels financially and technically support local implementation. If the decentralization of relevant functions and resources cannot be fully realized due to extremely weak local capacities, an incremental approach may be the most effective way forward.

The deconcentration of functions without wholly devolving authorities and budgets can be a pragmatic first step towards full decentralization. Twinning of capacity-rich municipalities and regions with poorer or more risk-prone ones, and strategic partnerships between technical centres and civil society organizations, further complement incremental devolution.

8.4.3 Hold decision-makers and institutions accountable

Social demand for improved accountability mechanisms can galvanize political will to invest in DRM or reform risk-governance arrangements. For national policy and local delivery to function effectively, there needs to be an awareness of rights and obligations by all sides, supported by strong and transparent accountability mechanisms. Provisions in legislation and specific regulations of public office can clearly demarcate the liabilities of leaders and government officials. Where transparent contractual arrangements both for civil servants and private service providers are agreed upon, such liabilities can be linked to expenditure and budgets. This can be done through performance reviews within and across government departments or through social audits at a local or sector level.

The media and civil society play an important role in creating the social demand for strengthened accountability mechanisms, not just for effective DRM but for public investments overall. This report presents evidence that such social accountability brings marginalized groups into the public arena, and significantly increases development effectiveness by improving service delivery at the local level.

Citizens must be aware of disaster risks if they are to hold governments to account, but the lack of public information and education was highlighted as a significant gap in the HFA Progress Review. The limited public awareness activities that do occur focus primarily on physical hazards or on the preparedness and response aspects of disaster management. Far more resources need to be devoted to increasing public awareness of risks and risk drivers at all levels and scales, and the need for a comprehensive approach that goes beyond disaster management. An important first step would be to ensure that citizens have access to national disaster loss inventories and comprehensive risk assessments. In a number of countries public access to disaster loss and risk information is not encouraged, which undermines accountability.

8.4.4 Partner with civil society

Effective local governance relies on adopting approaches to local planning, financing and investment that build on partnerships with civil society, particularly with risk-prone households and their representative organizations. This allows for the scaling up of community initiatives. Where community organizations have only limited capacity to reduce disaster risk and to hold governments to account, meso-level partnerships with other organizations, expert institutions and government bodies can improve the success of local and community-driven disaster risk reduction.

The enabling of such partnerships is an imperative, yet it must be done in a transparent manner based on clear terms of reference for each partner, and supported by an adequate legal framework. Where the roles and responsibilities of all partners are defined and well aligned, their joint action will provide the most effective means of addressing DRM challenges across scales. However, this may require a change in the culture of public administration and the adoption of new ways of working.

8.5 Build momentum for disaster risk reduction and management

Acknowledging and understanding the existence and importance of the stock of risk is the responsibility of every government. The HFA provides a general roadmap for achieving substantial reductions in disaster losses, but countries now need to set their own specific goals and targets. To do this, a number of tools are available to facilitate a process that is inclusive and transparent, and accountable to those most affected by disasters. These include the HFA Progress Review, national disaster loss monitoring systems, probabilistic risk assessments, and cost–benefit analyses.

This report has shown that there are many reasons why countries do not invest enough in disaster risk reduction, but there are no excuses for continuing to do so. The time for taking serious action is now. Fortunately, many of the policies discussed in this report will generate net savings for governments if adapted and adopted, by producing parallel development benefits. The evidence strongly suggests that cost-effective measures, if transparently developed, will also increase political as well as economic capital.

The process of compiling this report benefitted from the participation of more governments, technical experts, international organizations and civil society groups than were able to contribute to the 2009 report, indicating a growing momentum for disaster risk reduction. This needs to be harnessed and directed toward gaps in research and current knowledge. Known gaps include seismic risk, which was omitted from this report pending the finalization of new earthquake models, and an analysis of global drought risks just initiated. Disaggregated disaster impacts by gender and age need to be better understood, and the role of the private sector requires closer examination. Feedback loops between risk drivers must be examined as well as the cost-effectiveness of additional DRM measures. Closing such gaps will help in identifying the more cost-effective means of reducing disaster risks, and further build the case for more investment in DRM.

GAR 11 Background documents
  x 
Close!

GAR11GAR 2011 Contributing Papers

No GAR 11 Contributing Papers
  Previous  pageNext page 
Contact us  |  Disclaimer  |  Our Sponsors  |  References  |  Acknowledgements  |  PreventionWeb |  The Global Platform  |  © United Nations 2011.