Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 - PoA-ISS

Policy responses to disaster risk
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• Piggyback disaster risk reduction work onto existing
activities that are accepted as priorities locally. In Latin
America, the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO)
has included risk reduction training and information
with family and women’s health issues. 38
• Bring a wide range of actors together to highlight shared
(systemic) challenges to development. The AUDMP
adopted this approach in the Bangladesh Urban Disaster
Mitigation Project, where community-based disaster
risk management was enhanced through the wide
involvement of urban actors. 39
• Undertake a staged programme of disaster risk reduction
when external agencies are committed to a
long-term engagement with a community. CARE
Zambia’s Programme of Support for Poverty Elimination.
and Community Transformation (PROSPECT) sought to
confront governance aspects of urban vulnerability to
multiple hazards in Lusaka. It was left open for community
participants to define priority concerns. 40 As
debates unfolded, the linkages between disaster risk
and loss from even small events with developmental
concerns became more visible.
LAND-USE PLANNING
Land-use planning is perhaps the most fundamental tool for
mainstreaming disaster risk reduction into urban development
processes. It provides a framework within which
interventions to partner local actors for risk mapping and
community resilience building can be undertaken. This
includes partnerships between the municipal or city government,
community groups and the private sector. Familiar
planning tools such as zoning, community participation, GIS,
and information and education programmes are all integral
to mainstreaming risk reduction within local comprehensive
land-use planning process.
Mainstreaming risk reduction within strategies that
underpin land-use planning is challenging, particularly for
authorities with limited human and economic resources and
political influence. Perhaps most challenging of all is the aim
of including all urban stakeholders in the shaping of planning
policy and development decisions, with a rigorous,
independent and transparent procedure for overcoming
conflicting interests. This requires a multi-scaled approach,
as well as one that brings together actors from different
policy areas and from public, private and civil sectors.
Algeria’s National Land-Use Planning Model is a case in
point. Developing this national framework in 2005 necessitated
coordination between scientists, planners and
policy-makers and harmonization with local land-use
planning models. 41
Cuba has one of the best records for integrating disaster
risk planning within urban risk management. The
Institute for Physical and Spatial Planning has been legally
responsible for physical planning for over 40 years. Risk
maps have contributed to recommendations for retrofitting,
resettlement and urban growth regulation in 107 coastal
settlements. In conjunction with the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO), a comprehensive development plan was developed
in 1998 for areas of Havana exposed to coastal hazards.
Importantly, the agency with responsibility for disaster
response – the Civil Defence Service – has participated in
developing these plans. Plans have included protection for
the Old Town of Havana, a World Heritage site. 42 This is
unusual since many places of national and global architectural
importance are not adequately considered in disaster
planning. The loss of Bam in Iran is only one example.
Designing and implementing comprehensive land-use
planning is particularly challenging in many smaller cities,
where municipal capacity for urban planning is limited.
Initiatives that seek to extend risk reduction planning to
smaller municipalities have begun to emerge, although there
is still much to be done. For instance, in Nicaragua, the
Executive Secretariat of the National System for Disaster
Prevention, Mitigation and Response, created in 2000 by
law, has, together with UNDP Nicaragua, 43 developed a
programme to support local capacity-building for risk
management in six municipalities. This programme has
encouraged local participation in disaster risk planning. This,
in turn, has been facilitated through the production of a
series of four manuals based on the experience of local
actors and designed to be user friendly and non-technical.
They contain guidance for building community groups,
conducting risk assessments and influencing the municipal
government. Through this, local participation and the disaster
risk reduction component in land-use decision-making
can be enhanced. The success of these plans can be seen in
their reaching a third publication run in as many years by
2004.
Planning to manage risk systems in their entirety
further complicates land-use planning. Human settlements
of all sizes are situated within larger socio-ecological systems
that include environmental features (such as watersheds,
regimes of coastal land erosion and sediment deposition, or
earthquake zones), as well as social and cultural systems.
These systems are interdependent, expressed, for example,
through migration and economic exchange between rural
and urban areas or across urban centres. Urban risk management
needs to consider not only the internal, but also the
external environment. There are few successful examples of
this highly integrated approach; but there are many places
where this large-scale planning might bring dividends. Box
8.10 presents an example from The Netherlands, where
socio-ecological systems planning has been conducted in an
open fashion, thus strengthening democratic culture, as well
as reducing risk.
Extending land-use planning to informal
settlements and slums
Nearly 1 billion people, or one in every three city dwellers,
live in an informal settlement or slum. 44 Such areas are
typically cramped, with industrial and residential land uses in
close proximity (sometimes in the same building) and
exposed to natural hazard through their location on hill
slopes or low-lying land subject to waterlogging and flooding.
Within a context of rapid urban population growth and physi-
Land-use planning is
perhaps the most
fundamental tool for
mainstreaming risk
reduction into urban
development
processes
Urban risk
management needs
to consider not only
the internal, but also
the external
environment