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Policy responses to disaster risk205• Piggyback disaster risk reduction work onto existingactivities that are accepted as priorities locally. In LatinAmerica, the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO)has included risk reduction training and informationwith family and women’s health issues. 38• Bring a wide range of actors together to highlight shared(systemic) challenges to development. The AUDMPadopted this approach in the Bangladesh Urban DisasterMitigation Project, where community-based disasterrisk management was enhanced through the wideinvolvement of urban actors. 39• Undertake a staged programme of disaster risk reductionwhen external agencies are committed to along-term engagement with a community. CAREZambia’s Programme of Support for Poverty Elimination.and Community Transformation (PROSPECT) sought toconfront governance aspects of urban vulnerability tomultiple hazards in Lusaka. It was left open for communityparticipants to define priority concerns. 40 Asdebates unfolded, the linkages between disaster riskand loss from even small events with developmentalconcerns became more visible.LAND-USE PLANNINGLand-use planning is perhaps the most fundamental tool formainstreaming disaster risk reduction into urban developmentprocesses. It provides a framework within whichinterventions to partner local actors for risk mapping andcommunity resilience building can be undertaken. Thisincludes partnerships between the municipal or city government,community groups and the private sector. Familiarplanning tools such as zoning, community participation, GIS,and information and education programmes are all integralto mainstreaming risk reduction within local comprehensiveland-use planning process.Mainstreaming risk reduction within strategies thatunderpin land-use planning is challenging, particularly forauthorities with limited human and economic resources andpolitical influence. Perhaps most challenging of all is the aimof including all urban stakeholders in the shaping of planningpolicy and development decisions, with a rigorous,independent and transparent procedure for overcomingconflicting interests. This requires a multi-scaled approach,as well as one that brings together actors from differentpolicy areas and from public, private and civil sectors.Algeria’s National Land-Use Planning Model is a case inpoint. Developing this national framework in 2005 necessitatedcoordination between scientists, planners andpolicy-makers and harmonization with local land-useplanning models. 41Cuba has one of the best records for integrating disasterrisk planning within urban risk management. TheInstitute for Physical and Spatial Planning has been legallyresponsible for physical planning for over 40 years. Riskmaps have contributed to recommendations for retrofitting,resettlement and urban growth regulation in 107 coastalsettlements. In conjunction with the United NationsEducational, Scientific and Cultural Organization(UNESCO), a comprehensive development plan was developedin 1998 for areas of Havana exposed to coastal hazards.Importantly, the agency with responsibility for disasterresponse – the Civil Defence Service – has participated indeveloping these plans. Plans have included protection forthe Old Town of Havana, a World Heritage site. 42 This isunusual since many places of national and global architecturalimportance are not adequately considered in disasterplanning. The loss of Bam in Iran is only one example.Designing and implementing comprehensive land-useplanning is particularly challenging in many smaller cities,where municipal capacity for urban planning is limited.Initiatives that seek to extend risk reduction planning tosmaller municipalities have begun to emerge, although thereis still much to be done. For instance, in Nicaragua, theExecutive Secretariat of the National System for DisasterPrevention, Mitigation and Response, created in 2000 bylaw, has, together with UNDP Nicaragua, 43 developed aprogramme to support local capacity-building for riskmanagement in six municipalities. This programme hasencouraged local participation in disaster risk planning. This,in turn, has been facilitated through the production of aseries of four manuals based on the experience of localactors and designed to be user friendly and non-technical.They contain guidance for building community groups,conducting risk assessments and influencing the municipalgovernment. Through this, local participation and the disasterrisk reduction component in land-use decision-makingcan be enhanced. The success of these plans can be seen intheir reaching a third publication run in as many years by2004.Planning to manage risk systems in their entiretyfurther complicates land-use planning. Human settlementsof all sizes are situated within larger socio-ecological systemsthat include environmental features (such as watersheds,regimes of coastal land erosion and sediment deposition, orearthquake zones), as well as social and cultural systems.These systems are interdependent, expressed, for example,through migration and economic exchange between ruraland urban areas or across urban centres. Urban risk managementneeds to consider not only the internal, but also theexternal environment. There are few successful examples ofthis highly integrated approach; but there are many placeswhere this large-scale planning might bring dividends. Box8.10 presents an example from The Netherlands, wheresocio-ecological systems planning has been conducted in anopen fashion, thus strengthening democratic culture, as wellas reducing risk.Extending land-use planning to informalsettlements and slumsNearly 1 billion people, or one in every three city dwellers,live in an informal settlement or slum. 44 Such areas aretypically cramped, with industrial and residential land uses inclose proximity (sometimes in the same building) andexposed to natural hazard through their location on hillslopes or low-lying land subject to waterlogging and flooding.Within a context of rapid urban population growth and physi-Land-use planning isperhaps the mostfundamental tool formainstreaming riskreduction into urbandevelopmentprocessesUrban riskmanagement needsto consider not onlythe internal, but alsothe externalenvironment