Private sector investment decisions in building and construction: increasing, managing and transferring risks

This background paper for the 2013 Global Assessment Report aims, firstly, to make the case about how the private sector investments in building and construction are increasing levels of disaster risks, to understand what are the causes behind this, and to explore what this means for governments or other sectors of society who bear the burden of this risk. Secondly, this paper aims to explore new methods, incentives, regulations and examples of how private sector can/is
contributing to risk reduction in the built environment.

The paper concludes the following:

• Integrating hazard risk early on in the project process can increase the awareness about risk and incentivise risk reduction practices in building design.
• Technocratic planning processes tend to prevail, and what are needed are more dynamic planning processes that allow interaction between the multiple actors shaping the built environment.

This document is an input paper of the 2015 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction.