Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 - PoA-ISS

8
CHAPTER
POLICY RESPONSES TO
DISASTER RISK
A variety of actors, ranging from the international to the local
level, have sought to reduce disaster risk in urban areas
through policy responses and interventions. While urban risk
reduction policies are in their infancy, or altogether absent in
some contexts, a number of innovative strategies have been
developed and implemented successfully elsewhere. Risk
reduction policies are also differentiated in terms of their
orientation to shorter-term reconstruction and response
needs or development-oriented strategies seeking to reduce
vulnerability in the long term. These differences are partly
shaped by the resources and technical capacity available to
national and local actors, but also by their political will and
commitment.
The aim of this chapter is to assess the policy
responses of urban local authorities, national governments,
civil society and the international community to disasters,
both natural and human made. Responses designed to
mitigate disaster impacts involve land-use planning, the
design of buildings and infrastructure, early warning and
emergency response systems. Hazard and vulnerability
assessment techniques used to identify the locus and potential
impacts of disasters are particularly useful in informing
policy priorities and decisions. A critical and increasingly
prevalent policy response to disaster risk focuses on
strengthening household and local disaster resilience
through social, legal and economic pathways. Protecting
critical infrastructure and services, without which disaster
response and recovery is obstructed, is also recognized as a
necessary component of disaster risk reduction in cities.
Financing disaster risk management remains a challenge and
points to a critical role for the international community.
DISASTER RISK
ASSESSMENT
The rapid growth of urban areas has, in many cases, far
outstripped national and local capacities for formal data
collection or planning services. Thus, a major challenge for
responding to disaster risk is to assess human vulnerability,
hazard and risk in a way that can enable action from national,
international and local actors. Disaster risk assessment
encompasses techniques that seek to determine (in quantitative
or qualitative terms) ‘the nature and extent of risk by
analysing potential hazards and evaluating existing conditions
of vulnerability that could pose a potential threat or
harm to people, property, livelihoods and the environment
on which they depend’. 1
Risk assessment contributes to disaster risk reduction
by informing policy priorities and decisions on resource
expenditure. To effect change, risk assessment needs to be
incorporated within new policies or legislation for disaster
risk reduction. If undertaken in a participatory manner, the
process of risk assessment can build local capacity and generate
shared understanding of common threats and
opportunities. 2 Risk assessments also provide information
that is useful at all stages of the disaster risk reduction
continuum: in everyday development planning, as part of
preparedness and prevention pre-disaster, as well as in
response and reconstruction post-disaster. There are at least
ten kinds of information that risk assessment can provide: 3
1 Identify those hazards from which an area is at risk.
2 Identify the location, character and probability of risks
for relative risk assessment.
3 Determine who and what are vulnerable, relative
vulnerabilities, and pathways that have been generated
and maintained by people and places in states of vulnerability.
4 Assess the capacities and resources available for those
at risk to ameliorate their vulnerability.
5 Identify perceptions of risk held by those people at risk.
6 Determine levels of risk that are acceptable to those at
risk and the wider society.
7 Generate input for forecasting future human vulnerability,
hazard and risk.
8 Provide input to decision-making for policy and project
decision-making.
9 Generate assessments of the capacity of municipal and
national governments to undertake reconstruction
following disaster.
10 Catalyse the raising of risk awareness locally and among
policy-makers.
Risk assessment involves not only an evaluation of hazards,
but also the vulnerability of humans and the built and natural
…a major challenge
for responding to
disaster risk is to
assess human
vulnerability, hazard
and risk…