Indigenous knowledge for disaster risk reduction: An African perspective

This paper presents a literature review which highlights the need for more interest to be shown in indigenous knowledge on disaster risk reduction (DRR), especially in the developing country context. The aim is to lead to better strategies which originate from the community level but would aim for overall sustainable development in Africa.

This publication's conclusions are that:

• The community-led DRR adaptation initiatives are more suited to the African local people as they create platforms that enable engagement of like minds with shared values and shared knowledge.
• Locals feel a sense of security and communal belonging when sharing the same knowledge that is indigenous to their culture.
• This increases the chance of employing participatory approaches to tackle disasters.
• The governments should show more interest in African indigenous knowledge shared and implemented in the most basic form of community, which is the household unit.
• Provisions for documentation of indigenous knowledge should be made in the DRR literature, enabling more researchers to work towards harnessing such knowledge.

Jàmbá: Journal of Disaster Risk Studies, Volume 8, Issue 1, a272, July 2016. This document is published under a Creative Commons Attribution licence.