For over 20 years, The Asia Foundation has been helping communities to strengthen their resilience to natural disasters and the increasing threats from climate change. Its current programs engage the private sector, pilot innovation in data sharing, cultivate leadership among local and national governments, and facilitate regional coordination.
This book presents strategies for managing disasters and reducing risks in Asian countries. Given the dynamic changes in the natural environment as well as the patterns of land use and management, the growing populations of the developing nations in Asia, migration patterns, and other social-cultural aspects, the impacts of disasters have increased manifold in Asian countries. Against this backdrop, the book examines disaster management issues such as disaster preparedness, post-disaster reconstruction, peace, development and corruption. The views of different groups of stakeholders are incorporated in the discussion to ensure a comprehensive analysis of and findings on the governance process, as well as best practices in pre- and post-disaster management. The book also includes chapters focusing on aspects often overlooked in the context of disaster management, such as the need to invest in public education to improve public awareness, and approaches to supporting the disabled, the vulnerable and the elderly from disaster risks. In closing, the book presents research on disaster management methods employed by different countries in the Asian region.
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a set of policy suggestions for integrating risk management and increasing risk reduction measures and planning.
Design/methodology/approach – It bases on a brief description of the disaster risk management programs in Mexico, a review of their recent available assessments as well as it makes a brief economic analysis of their performance to conclude with some policy suggestions.
Findings – Despite its novel design, the still low penetration of governmental instruments for disaster risk reduction in Mexico has led to high society's reliance on post-disaster measures. It has encouraged moral risk among potential victims. Even when crop insurance has increased coverage over the past decade, disaster prevention instruments are still underused. Accessing to prevention funding requires project proposals from national and sub-national governments based on concrete risk assessments. However, the prevailing lack of institutional capacity to elaborate proposals from sub-national governments seems to explain it at a large extent. The paper provides a set of suggestions on this regard.
Originality/value – There is no recent integral assessment of disaster risk in Mexico. Although there is a recent OECD review of the National Civil Protection System, its analysis leaves out the catastrophic agricultural insurance, critical part of comprehensive risk management of a country. On the other hand, there are recent evaluations of programs public for disaster risk management, but these consist of only individual program evaluations, lacking integrative and comparative analysis. Thus, this paper provides a comprehensive view of government risk management and concludes with a series of policy recommendations.
In GFDRR 's track two, mainstreaming disaster risk reduction in development, this lead to a prioritization of operations in 20 core countries, including Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Ghana, Haiti, Indonesia, Kyrgyz Republic, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mozambique, Nepal, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Senegal, Solomon Islands, Togo, Vietnam, and Republic of Yemen. The countries were selected due to their high vulnerability to natural hazards and low economic resilience to cope with disaster impacts including anticipated climate change and variability. Two thirds of the countries are least developed countries and twelve are highly indebted poor countries. Nine are from Africa and several others are Small Island States at high risk. These 20 core countries will receive 80 percent of available funds while 20 percent will be made available for flexible, innovative, high impact grants, such as those that catalyze increased investment programs and integration of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation in development in any disaster prone country. A multi-stakeholder planning process lays the foundation for the comprehensive national programs for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. The process ensures the facilitation of ownership by governments for their risk. The presented programs are indicative and further dialogue with the Governments and other partners will refine the agendas as the detailed planning and implementation phases start. At the sixth meeting of the GFDRR Consultative Group in Geneva, disaster risk management plans are put forward for 25 out of the 31 priority and donor-earmarked countries. The plans for the six remaining countries of Burkina Faso, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Senegal, and Timor-Leste will be submitted at the seventh meeting of the GFDRR Consultative Group since consultations in these countries are still ongoing.
National governments are supposed to play a pivotal role in disaster risk management (DRM). This paper reviews trends and patterns in developing governance and institutions in DRM in the Asia and the Pacific region. The paper then derives recommendations on how to establish disaster risk governance for developing countries, including mainstreaming DRM into development plans and policies. A four-pronged approach is presented: First, strengthen the DRM coordination role of the national government. Second, develop an enhanced legal framework. Third, establish a DRM focal point agency. Fourth, build a flexible cooperation system among concerned organizations and all levels of government.
This book illustrates the main factors of vulnerability and gives a clear picture about the possible interventions to reduce disaster risks both in schools and communities in Azerbaijan. A new methodology for child centered vulnerability assessments both on school and community levels has been developed. This methodology can be used to assess the level of vulnerability of schools and communities. The book is a newly prepared training manual which will help practitioners conduct trainings for government and community organizations. While the book is focused on a specific region, the suggested approach is generic and can be used elsewhere.
This book scrutinizes the entire disaster trajectory history in the Republic of Korea: evolution, cross-over, and interconnection among natural, technological, and social disasters. Also examined is the government's dynamic reaction for effective disaster responses in the wake of major disasters, labelled as focusing events, distributed in the long tail of the power law function. Collating one nation's entire disaster history, its disaster management policies, and its responses to major disasters is a unique journey into that nation's evolution. Korea rose from devastation in the 1950s to become one of the most economically and politically dynamic nations by the turn of the century. However, with rapid growth has come all types of disasters. Looking at the lessons learned from Korea's disaster risk management measures, policies, and responses, as well as some of the world's major disasters, we can gain insight into the future of disaster risk management. This book is intended to lay out developing nations' potential future disaster risk management path, a theoretical policymaking guide, and desirable institutional and organizational transformations. Effective countermeasures included in this book will guide policymakers, capacity builders, and academics in developing nations to avoid the disaster path in the near future at the cost of rapid economic growth that Korea faced. .