Pathways of transformation: Disaster Risk Management to enhance development goals

This document asks if transformation pathways for disaster risk management can be observed, and if so then how and why they unfold as observed. The study uses a qualititative analysis to establish an empirical basis for policy development that can more actively open strategic transformative action whithin the disaster risk management field.

The case-studies from New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Niger and the United States of America, showed the potential for individuals and population level behaviour and of organized civil society as agents of transformation.

• In New Zealand, the 2010 Christchurch earthquake catalyzed national debate and brought voices from under-represented groups and new interestests into the mainstream.
• In India, households were seen to transform through crisis migration when in-situ adaptive capacity met its limits.
• In Pakistan, in the aftermath of 2010 and 2011 flooding political space for citizen-state interaction was reshaped.
• In Niger, the intersection of incremental changes and wider discursive debate in the international aid system led to a moment of critical reflexivity within Save the Children.
• In New York, transformation was identified in the process and membership of decision-making circuits post-Sandy hurricane.

This document is a background paper of the 2015 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction.