Towards a post-2015 framework for Disaster Risk Reduction BUILDING THE RESILIENCE OF NATIONS AND COMMUNITIES TO DISASTERS

Good day All,

(a). There are so many obstacles and major challenges to action on disaster risk reduction and building resilience in my dear country Nigeria, where we run a federal system of government with three tiers of governments: the central, state and local governments.

i. The powers of these governments are allocated according to the Exclusive, Concurrent and Residual lists as provided by the constitution. The ACT establishing our National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) provides for same three tiers or levels of the Emergency Agencies to reflect our federalism. However, this arrangement is militating against our efforts towards efficient disaster risk reduction and building resilience nation.

ii. Related to this, is a weak national funding framework. The government budgetary allocation for disaster Management is nothing to write home about and the private sector does not see the economic justifications for investment in disaster risks reductions projects

iii. The various government agencies that ought to work hand in hand in disaster risk reductions are in complete disarray and do not complement one another.


(b) The factors contributing to these challenges are:

i. Lack of Political will on the part of decision makers
ii. priority of developmental activities as against protecting the hard earned developments achieved against disasters
iii. The Federal/Central government has not enforced the ACT that set up NEMA


(c). The challenges can be tackled through:

i. The constitution review that is going on the country should move the NEMA activities/powers into Exclusive list, where the Federal/central government owns up to the full responsibility of disaster risk reduction throughout the country
ii. All our appropriation bills must set aside at least 5% of the annual budget for disaster risk reductions
iii. The private sectors especially those that contribute toward global warming and environmental damages must be compelled to invest in disaster management through taxes
iv. Creating a unified emergency agency that brings all relevant government participants under single umbrella, that is, The NEMA, Fire services departments, Road Safety Corps, Civil defense Corps, anti-terror squads, Military Disaster Response Units and so on should be brought under one Command for efficient disaster Management.


Ismail Tijjani Idris
Department of Business Administration
Ahmadu Bello University Zaria
Nigeria.

Hello,
In most African countries, governments don't even understand that DRR is a major component of the country's recovery. I believe that this point needs to be explained and repeated because there are so many urgent needs that needs are prioritized according to the very immediate emergencies on the ground.

Hi Loy and friends,

Thanks for another chance to share some thoughts to this discussions. I am quite happy how these discussions have developed. I just hope that the people who have started to participate will continue their share thoughts and insights to the specific themes now raised. One take away I have in these discussions are updates from the other parts of the world in implementing the HFA. I am quite amazed with the update about the Pacific Islands adopting their own regional framework on DRR. I understand here in the Southeast Asia region there have been discussions as well on DRR within ASEAN and it has some active NGO participation in those discussions. Anyway back to subject of this discussion.

Obstacles or challenges for action, I would agree to the points raised earlier on the challenge of (1) political will of government to really put priority to DRR and HFA implementation and (2) resources generation available for DRR action. Other than these two points I would like to add that one obstacle that I think is a challenge at least from my own experience is still about mindsets and paradigms of communities towards disasters. Here in the Philippines, many communities are still adamant and complacent in responding to the need for DRR. The prevailing trend that is happening is that people tend to realize the importance of DRR after they have experienced extreme losses after a tremendous disaster event. One friend would say that the cost of "tuition fee" just to learn a lesson on DRR is quite expensive amounting to hundreds of people affected and thousands pesos of lost agricultural crops and infrastracture. The latest case was in the event in TS Washi in the southern island of the Philippines, Mindanao. I also came from Mindanao and growing up I was taught that no typhoons will come to Mindanao because it is away from the typhoon "belt". So when there was a government warning on TS Washi some people in Mindanao was in disbelief and many have not acted on the warning thus resulting to huge disaster loses which until now is rehabilitation is still ongoing and DRR then becomes a major action. For organizations facilitating DRR this is a challenge in terms of convincing local governments as well as communities to act on DRR before any disaster event strikes them.

Another obstacle as mentioned above is resources and for a country like the Philippines, resources is a huge factor in implementing DRR actions from the ground and up. Although the policies are there to have a sustainable source of funds for DRR, the government is burdened with huge amounts of targeted spending to address the needs of the growing population such as more schools (which every year, government has to build thousands of classrooms to absorb new students), more health care, housing and economic development. The MDG target of health has been seen as not achievable by the Philippine government because of such challenges. This burden is felt from the national government down to the local governments. After facilitating risk assessments and risk reduction planning ultimately, the question of funding becomes dead-end on the road towards DRR work.

In the previous discussions I have participated on DRR, a challenge is also in the area of how resilience is understood but more importantly measured. Do we have minimum indicators or a clear understanding of what is meant of resilience at the community level. Many organizations have been doing a lot of good in the area of developing tools on how to facilitate community DRR actions but very few (at least from what I am aware of) have been done about indicators for resilience which will serve as benchmarks for DRR actions and resilience building.

Lastly on the challenges, I think there is a challenge of DRR being disconnected to the overall discussions for national and community level development. DRR is seen as another layer, another policy pronouncements that local governments have to comply instead of viewing DRR as something essential in order to achieve sustainable development, development that is safeguarded from hazards and climate change effects. Integrating and mainstreaming DRR in many development facets such as linking DRR to health, livelihoods, education and ecosystems management have been a key theme in many DRR actions in the Philippines.

How do we tackle and go beyond these challenges and underlying factors? There have been positive "solutions" towards addressing these barriers. One way is to work with new and not so to be engaged stakeholders in DRR work. The Philippines have good actions on engaging the private sector to contribute in securing resources for community actions on DRR. Corporate social responsibility served as the entry point for channeling some CSR resources to DRR. Many NGOs in the country have also engaged the educations sector for DRR. Children are at risk to disasters because of their vulnerability and level of capacities and working in schools is also the best way to correct the traditional thinking towards disasters. Sometimes children becomes the best educators to their parents as well. Other than working with the private sector and education sector, some NGOs have also worked with the academe for research and development of technologies that will improve risk assessments and hazard specific and cost effective early warning systems. These are some of the solutions explored to address the challenges to resources and cultural mindsets towards disasters.

Another solution I think that is being done is the value of continuing linking and learning among DRR actors and players. It is through this linking and learning that best practices are shared, joint problem solving and advocacies are borne and pursued. Linking and learning also allowed for better understanding of the principles and practice of DRR which for has been quite interesting among many organizations. The concept and interpretation of vulnerability, capacity and disaster risk have been quite different among organizations resulting to differences in approaches and tools. I don't believe that tools and approaches have to be uniformed among organizations and agencies but I do believe that all tools and approaches, definitions will all lead to a the reduction of risks and to the resilience of the community. For all we know, at the eyes of the local communities, villages, barangays and community organizations--they don't care about any "DRR formula", what they care about is to keep their communities safe and resilient from hazards and climate change.

This has been very long I apologize for writing a lot. Cheers to all participants.

Wilson
IIRR-Regional Center for Asia
Philippines

What are major challenges to action on disaster risk reduction and building resilience? How do we tackle them?

The major challanges so far in appropriate design of DRR project/s. In maximum cases single problem is addressing, rather than considering cross cutting problems of the communities. Participatory problem identification and community perspectives is highly required to develop a compehensive project/programme to build sustainable copping mechanis/resillence of the community. Problem specific and region specific package is highly required to address the needs caused by natural disasters.
DRR project should focus social, economic, infrastructure and service facilities, education, alternative on and off farm interventions, skill diversification to cope with disaster situation. Use of barren resource/s for non resource base households is highly requier for income option and to protect rural and urban migration. Finally, policy ammendment and update with adequate funding mechanism is highly required to achieve sustainable developent and progress to build capacity for future challanges. We haver ground level experience to deal with comprehensive project with innovative ideas to tackle the existing vulnerability of the communities affected by flooding and river erosion in Bangladesh.


For more details the suggested links are putting below for google search;

www.practicalaction.org
WWW,sandbar cropping in Bnagladesh
floating garden in Bangladesh
DW TV Programme links:

DW-TV presentation;Steeming floods in Bangladesh
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,,11486,00.html?x=21&y=11&id=11486

http://practicalaction.org/turning-compost-into-food-2

Sighting an instance from my immediate environment Nigeria, lack of political will is a standing impediment, confronting Disaster Risk Reduction, if there are will, implementation of law and order would have been a tradition, but for the lack of the above, human being are like misguided and scattered soldier ants, behaving and doing things the way it pleases their conscience detrimental to their fellow being.
E.g In Nigeria structures are erected indiscriminately, such structures are erected in a mapped out plan for maybe canal or sea way, thereby causing upsurge, flood etc, no political will to tell such personalities to their face not to such erect structures.

Secondly,another example, is that the interest of certain individuals to import fuel in my country, has crippled the effort of Government from repairing the already dilapidated refineries, thereby paving way for them to dictate fuel pump price, make huge profit from the poor masses, create artificial scarcity of products, making chance for the poor to horde and preserve inflammable products in homes, shops, market places etc, these hoardings has resulted into 75% fire disaster in the land today, lack of political will, wrong people at the right places, laws are made for the poor not for the wealthy men, the man himself at the helm of affairs are fraudulent elected, as such he or she has no will to right the wrong, therefore lack of political will stand as a challenge to DRR.
Citizens must learn to understand their right and hold it judiciously, we must learn to disagree the wrong, even when it is a matter of life and death, during elections we must not succumb to voting the wrong candidate, even if we are dying of hunger, because when the wrong person is saddled with our immediate responsibility, we will be hungry the more.

Thanks,
Chris

What are the obstacles and major challenges to action on disaster risk reduction and building resilience?
• What are the underlying factors that contribute to these challenges?
• How do we tackle these challenges?
• What are the solutions to moving beyond the barriers?
The situation is different from region to region and country to country. In third world countries there are governance issues, corruption, lack of access to technology, lack of professionals on DRR subject, the government setup on DRR are fragile and comprised ill competent people, governments are not serious about DRR issues, lack of budget for DRR and misuse of donors aid, discontinuation of policies, bureaucracy monopoly, inappropriate DRR projects, lack of structural mitigation are the major challenges and obstacles to action on DRR and building resilience.
Further more poverty, poor education system, non democratic values, racism, terrorism, violation of human rights, rapid urbanization and lack of access to basic needs of life are the factors which contribute to these challenges.
Strong government institutions leading by professional and committed people can address the issues at state level. The International Donors agencies and UN make such arrangement that the fund and budget can be utilized by member states properly transparently.Favoritism, corruption and monopoly of few should be discouraged. The member states should be bound for structural mitigation and allocation of proper budget for DRR. DRR projects should be long term result oriented and cost effective. Rural population specially the poor and marginalized segment of society must be part of DRR initiatives . Donor agencies focus CBDRM for community empowerment and resilience.

Poverty reduction, development of rural areas, research, applied DRR knowledge and proper care for basic human rights can be helpful to solve these issues. Quality of education, advance technology, community awareness and ownership are also necessary for DRR and sustainable development

HI,
Welcome you All.

a fruitful discussions and i hope we will be able to find out such ways which can be used to make resilient the communities in different parts of the world. further this is good to share the experiences and skills.

focusing the theme "DRR" challenges, i would like to mention some of the emerging issues and challenges which faced by our country Pakistan.


1. implementation of policies have been a question mark in our country. since the establishment of NDMA national Disaster management Authority, it has not been implemented to the gross root level.

2. DRR is a misunderstood theme to most of the government functionaries. integration of DRR into development is crucial but this is not properly understood so many funds have been wasted on poor mitigation without any assessment.

3. mindset of the rural communities is hindrance on the way of implementation.

Solutions:


1. implementation of DRR policies and building codes
2. integration of DRR and Development
3. changing traditional mindset of people in rural communities through scientific observations

4. taking benefits from the indigenous knowledge of the people and preparing a sound response and preparedness mechanism.

Hi,
Thank you very much for providing so fruitful discussions online forum.


I am Sher wali from Gilgit Baltistan the northern portion of Pakistan and associated with FOCUS Humanitarian Assistance Pakistan " An agency of Aga Khan Development network AKDN", which is working in the field of Disaster management. Being a young Geographer, and new practitioner in the field of Geo hazards , i am deeply engaged with the ongoing Geo hazards, like floods,debris flows,landslides, GLOFs , snow avalanches and many others. climate change is one of the triggering factors which has activated these metro-logical and geological hazards worldwide.

As for my own region is concern since decades the region has exposed to many major disasters. such as Flash floods 2010, which have affected 104 villages in Gilgit Baltistan leaving the population homeless,and destroying their all livelihood options. Atababd landslide in Hunza, which lost 19 human lives and blocked the river as a result 26 km long,and 125m deep landslide dam formed which blocked the international road (KKH) which connects Pakistan with China. 2500 population upstream of the lake has become disconnected to access the region. the lake is still intact for 2 years of its formation leaving an ongoing risk to the downstream population of the region.

During these disasters mentioned above organizations, government and other actors played their role to response the disasters. but there were many challenges in the way of taking appropriate actions. some lesson learnt while dealing such disasters are put up here.


Challenges:

1. lack of awareness regrading the disasters and its lack of training in DRR initiatives
2. Non-availability of emergency funds for DRR
3. formulation of DRR related policies and its implementation
4. lack of technical knowledge regarding the Geo-hazards
5. lack of uniform policy for relief and emergency response among the DRR agents including government
6. lack of capacity building among the institutions regarding the relief,recovery and reconstruction phases.
7. mindset of the rural communities
8. cultural sensitivity

How to make resilience:

1. formulation of particular laws and policies and its implementation
2. hazard identification and anticipations in the remote areas and formulation of contingency planing accordingly

3. capacity building of the institutions \
4. utilization of local resources and indigenous knowledge for making training manuals for capacity building

5. Natural resource management and reducing the risk from the reckless usage of forests, weeds and unstable slopes. pasture management should be established in the mountainous areas through community organizations

Dear Colleagues

One of the major challenges to action on DRR and building resilience is the scarcity of resources allocated specifically from development budgets for the realization of risk reduction objectives at the international, national and regional levels or through international cooperation and financial mechanisms,

There is however the potential to tackle this through exploiting existing resources and established practices for more effective disaster risk reduction measures. One of these resources is the defense budgets of U.N countries. As little as 1% of the defense budget of each U.N country could make it possible to implement DRR prevention strategies that could save the lives of millions along with the massive expenditure needed to deal with post disaster crisis.

The defense budgets are supposed to protect each countries civilian population from invading forces. These days 'Climate Change' and environmental catastrophes are threatening the well being of civilians worldwide in a more dramatic way than invading forces and can only get much worst if not tackled effectively. 1% of defense budgets used in this way could even create vast savings in defense budgets, when weighed against the costs arising from conflicts linked with migration due to environmental crisis.
In the U.K we have an old proverb which is worth considering here:
"A stitch in time saves nine".

All the Best
Stella