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8CHAPTERPOLICY RESPONSES TODISASTER RISKA variety of actors, ranging from the international to the locallevel, have sought to reduce disaster risk in urban areasthrough policy responses and interventions. While urban riskreduction policies are in their infancy, or altogether absent insome contexts, a number of innovative strategies have beendeveloped and implemented successfully elsewhere. Riskreduction policies are also differentiated in terms of theirorientation to shorter-term reconstruction and responseneeds or development-oriented strategies seeking to reducevulnerability in the long term. These differences are partlyshaped by the resources and technical capacity available tonational and local actors, but also by their political will andcommitment.The aim of this chapter is to assess the policyresponses of urban local authorities, national governments,civil society and the international community to disasters,both natural and human made. Responses designed tomitigate disaster impacts involve land-use planning, thedesign of buildings and infrastructure, early warning andemergency response systems. Hazard and vulnerabilityassessment techniques used to identify the locus and potentialimpacts of disasters are particularly useful in informingpolicy priorities and decisions. A critical and increasinglyprevalent policy response to disaster risk focuses onstrengthening household and local disaster resiliencethrough social, legal and economic pathways. Protectingcritical infrastructure and services, without which disasterresponse and recovery is obstructed, is also recognized as anecessary component of disaster risk reduction in cities.Financing disaster risk management remains a challenge andpoints to a critical role for the international community.DISASTER RISKASSESSMENTThe rapid growth of urban areas has, in many cases, faroutstripped national and local capacities for formal datacollection or planning services. Thus, a major challenge forresponding 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 assessmentencompasses techniques that seek to determine (in quantitativeor qualitative terms) ‘the nature and extent of risk byanalysing potential hazards and evaluating existing conditionsof vulnerability that could pose a potential threat orharm to people, property, livelihoods and the environmenton which they depend’. 1Risk assessment contributes to disaster risk reductionby informing policy priorities and decisions on resourceexpenditure. To effect change, risk assessment needs to beincorporated within new policies or legislation for disasterrisk reduction. If undertaken in a participatory manner, theprocess of risk assessment can build local capacity and generateshared understanding of common threats andopportunities. 2 Risk assessments also provide informationthat is useful at all stages of the disaster risk reductioncontinuum: in everyday development planning, as part ofpreparedness and prevention pre-disaster, as well as inresponse and reconstruction post-disaster. There are at leastten kinds of information that risk assessment can provide: 31 Identify those hazards from which an area is at risk.2 Identify the location, character and probability of risksfor relative risk assessment.3 Determine who and what are vulnerable, relativevulnerabilities, and pathways that have been generatedand maintained by people and places in states of vulnerability.4 Assess the capacities and resources available for thoseat 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 atrisk and the wider society.7 Generate input for forecasting future human vulnerability,hazard and risk.8 Provide input to decision-making for policy and projectdecision-making.9 Generate assessments of the capacity of municipal andnational governments to undertake reconstructionfollowing disaster.10 Catalyse the raising of risk awareness locally and amongpolicy-makers.Risk assessment involves not only an evaluation of hazards,but also the vulnerability of humans and the built and natural…a major challengefor responding todisaster risk is toassess humanvulnerability, hazardand risk…