A ripple in development? - Channel Research

2 The state and civil society
2.1 Introduction
This section sets out to (1) provide an overview of the effects of the tsunami
itself and the response to the disaster on the actions and roles of
the state and civil society; (2) analyse these roles in the context of their
linkages toward development.
The analysis concentrates on two main questions:
1. What roles have the state and civil society played in relation to
LRRD from the point of view of the population?
2. What were the favourable and the limiting factors to stronger linkages
between relief, rehabilitation and development?
The evaluation questions addressed have been:
1. To what extent have state and civil society institutions regained or
preserved their capacity to lead recovery?
2. What lessons can be drawn from comparisons of the three country
case studies (with a focus on three related institutions) with regard to
decentralisation and subsidiarity?
3. To what extent has support to the reconstruction of infrastructure
been matched by attention to constraints (human and institutional)?
4. What is the relevance and impact of information flows, consultation
and capacity building of the local communities?
Given the breadth of the subject, the focus has been placed on the
national systems established to govern the reconstruction response, and
on identifying key elements associated with state and civil society roles
and governance-related processes which have either positively supported
LRRD, or acted against establishing linkages with development.
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