Question

Practical tools and methods for community-based disaster management planning

Answer 1

The three World Conferences on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), held in Yokohama [18], Kobe [50] and Sendai [52], Japan, identified capacity development for DRR as one of the primary means of substantially reducing disaster losses. Many organisations are involved in supporting capacity development for DRR, both bilaterally and multilaterally, for example, governmental agencies and donors, United Nations agencies, regional governmental bodies, INGOs, and the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. While the importance of capacity development has been increasingly recognised, recent studies show that there are challenges impeding its implementation [3,6,12,14,15,42,49]. In particular, specific approaches, frameworks or guidance in capacity development may be lacking [8,21,23,35] and there is lack of academic research on capacity development for DRR [40]. Further, knowledge about capacity development, what it involves and what works in practice is still an emerging practice. Project management frameworks, such as results-based management or the logical framework approach, are routinely used for DRR projects, yet they do not include guidance on capacity development. Thus, one recurring challenge facing the DRR community is related to how capacity development initiatives are identified, designed and implemented. For example, many DRR initiatives are undertaken without a proper capacity assessment [15,20]. In the absence of guidance, there is a tendency to undertake capacity development for DRR according to one's own rules and experience. This limits the ability of the DRR community at large to build a common body of knowledge on how to do capacity development for DRR.