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202Natural and human-made disastersBox 8.6 Community action builds leadership and resiliencein Santo Domingo, the Dominican RepublicThe Dominican Disaster Mitigation Committee (DDMC) is a national non-governmental organization(NGO) that, with support from the Organization of American States (OAS), has soughtto build local capacity as an integral part of its disaster risk reduction work in the city of SantoDomingo.Activities implemented by the DDMC include community mapping of local hazards,vulnerabilities and capacities, as well as leadership training. Communities are then invited todraw up competitive proposals for hazard mitigation projects where costs are split betweenDDMC and the local community. This approach generates multiple outputs. At one level, a riskreduction project is supported. More fundamental is the experience gained by grassrootsactors of undertaking risk assessments and developing project proposals for external funding.The DDMC will only cover 50 per cent of the costs for any project proposal, requiring thecommunity to raise additional funds or resources in kind through labour. The DDMC will alsonot provide financial support for any additional projects, thereby encouraging local actors tobuild on their experience to apply for funding from other NGO or government sources.Seven communities in Santo Domingo have taken part in the programme, with 2000people benefiting directly. Activities have included building local sewer systems, storm drains, aflood dike and an anti-landslide wall. Building local capacity in the communities has not onlyreduced risk, but has also enhanced disaster response. In one community, Mata Mamon, in 1998,Hurricane Georges caused damage to 75 per cent of houses. It was the local community whomanaged aid distribution when the first supplies arrived after ten days.Source: Pelling, 2003; see also Dominican Association of Disaster Mitigation, www.desastre.org/home/index.php4?lang=espWhile communitysolidarity can be anasset for disasterrisk reduction,communities are notinherently harmonious…Venezuela. This community was among those exposed to theextreme flooding and landslides of 1999, which killed30,000 people. According to an official from the organizationEcumenical Action-ACT: 26… the organization of the neighbourhood andthe solidarity of the people saved hundreds oflives … as the flooding progressed, communitymembers mobilized to assist one another.Neighbours who knew each other and hadworked together for years communicatedswiftly the news of the rising water. Olderresidents were helped from their homes byyounger neighbours. When a few were reluctantto leave because they didn’t believe thethreat or because they were afraid their fewpossessions could be stolen, neighbours brokedown doors and carried people forcibly tosafety… In one incident where we were trying,unsuccessfully, to kick down the heavy door of awoman who refused to leave her house, a younggang member came along, pulled out a pistoland fired into the lock, allowing the door to beopened. The gang member then pointed his gunat the woman and ordered her out of her house.Seconds after she left the dwelling, the housefell into the raging current … perhaps as few as15 people died, a very small figure compared toother similar neighbourhoods where hundredslost their lives.The urban population is a key resource during times of disaster,as demonstrated in Mexico City, where, following the1985 earthquake, up to 1 million volunteers helped inrescue and relief operations. 27Where disaster risk is a dominant aspect of everydaylife, it can become a concern around which local associationsorganize and remain engaged with development. A greatdiversity of local associations can contribute to disaster riskreduction, including kinship, religious and gender- or youthbasedgroups, as well as groups organized around particularinterests, such as sports, environmental or social improvement.All of these groups, and not only those that aredevelopment or disaster oriented, can play a role in buildingnetworks of support and, thus, disaster resilience. It is thosecommunities who have a rich stock of associations that arealso most likely to engage in risk reduction at the local level.Furthermore, local associations can act as intermediaries,conveying information between local residents and externalactors seeking to build local resilience. They can also enrichexternally funded risk reduction projects by sharing knowledgeof local customs, environmental hazards, socialvulnerability and capacity.While community solidarity can be an asset for disasterrisk reduction, communities are not inherentlyharmonious entities. Rather, they are heterogeneous and areoften cross-cut by internal competition, informationasymmetries and socio-economic inequality. This can underminecommunity-level risk reduction projects, leading tointerventions exacerbating inequalities and underminingcollective resilience. For example, in many communities,women may predominate in the membership of communitygroups, but may be excluded from leadership. This is amissed opportunity. 28 An Indian NGO, Swayam ShiksamPrayong, has attempted to address this concern by enacting aphilosophy of not only rebuilding physical structures, butrealigning social relations in post-disaster periods. A prioritywas to work with women to facilitate their visions of lifeafter the earthquake, which included, for example, assigningland titles to both women and men. 29 Box 8.7 offers someexamples of ways in which women have taken a lead inreducing local disaster risk.External agencies seeking to work with communitylevelpartners in disaster risk reduction must also becautious not to assume that community leaders representthe best interests of local residents. Following the Bhujearthquake in Gujarat (India) in 2001, international andgovernment aid prioritized speed in distribution of goods,which enabled high-cast groups to capture a disproportionateamount of aid at the expense of lower-cast groups andMuslims. 30 This observation underlines the advantages ofdisaster risk reduction and response work that is built onsound knowledge of local political and social rivalries, as wellas capacities for collective action to build resilience.Building the capacity of local authorities is also vitalfor disaster risk reduction. The Asian Urban DisasterMitigation Program (AUDMP) works to build local- and citylevelcapacity across Asia. One of its projects in the city ofRatnapura (Sri Lanka) seeks to improve the disaster riskmanagement capacity of local authorities by providing themwith improved tools and skills. This involved the developmentof a methodology for identifying hazards anddetermining potential losses. Outputs have included the