Visions of sharing responsibility for disaster resilience

This one-day workshop will examine the idea and practice of sharing responsibility for disaster resilience. The idea of ‘shared responsibility’ is shaping emergency management thinking in Australia. It has gained significant policy traction following the Victorian 2009 Bushfires Royal Commission and the release of the National Strategy for Disaster Resilience. Similar ideas have been circulating in other sectors for some time. Yet it is not clear what the idea really means or what its implications are for policy and practice. This Workshop will address two general questions:

- First, the idea: what does the idea of ‘shared responsibility’ mean, and what are its implications?
- Second, the practice: is it a useful policy concept, what needs to be done to implement it, and what could undermine it?

The Workshop program will include: speakers representing a broad range of perspectives from research and practice; researchers supported by the Bushfire CRC who will present on emerging research in this area; and panels which will consider “top-down” (government-led) and “bottomup” (community-led) contributions to sharing risk and responsibility. A final panel will reflect on opportunities and challenges for integrating these contributions. An emphasis will be on discussion involving all participants.

More details will be circulated closer to the date of the workshop.