the challenge of sustainability •substantial investment in
TRANSCRIPT
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Perspectives on what constitutes effective community based disaster risk management
and early warning systems and how to ensure ownership and sustainability.
Community Based Early Warning Systems: The Challenge Of Sustainability
IOC / UNESCO, Paris, 3-8 March 2005.
Marc Gordon, DIPECHO SEA, DG Humanitarian Aid, European Commission.
•Early warning systems (EWS) as part of a comprehensive, integrated risk reduction programme, which is itself an integral part of a sustainable, long-term development plan.
•Stand-alone EW / disaster risk management (DRM) projects do not work in the long term.
•Substantial investment in extra-ordinary regional cooperation mechanisms required for trans-boundary disasters. Communities and community-based activities must be incorporated and represented in such a framework.
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• Practical realities of implementing EWS, particularly at community level, often confound project designers and programme managers alike, despite fully participatory project development.
• Technical vision of risk as seen by DRM personnel commonly differs with the vision of risk as seen by the community, and encompass factors often overlooked by external actors.
• Most successful examples of community-based disaster risk management (CBDRM) have identified ‘the need to move out of the disaster risk reduction (DRR) mindset and into one of sustainable development with a DRR dimension’.
Perspectives on Risk• The challenge of facilitating conceptual understanding of EW is
often compounded by a lack of communication fluency between the project workforce and beneficiary population.
• Successful low tech (even no-tech) solutions to the problem of information transmission to, within and between communities at risk, exist, but not before sustained and substantial investment in building social capital.
• Government commitment to reinforcing national disaster management structures and systems with real inter-ministerial resource mobilisation and decision-making capabilities at all national and sub-national levels is minimal.
• Dependence on civil society and mass organisations and of course the community themselves, is in many cases absolute.
Information Transmission, Exchange and Dissemination
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Flood signage developed by Environment Agency, UK.
Preliminary Flood signage developed by Action against Hunger, CAMBODIA
All Clear
An all clear will be issued when flood watches or warnings are no longer in force.
Flood Watch
Flooding possible. Be aware! Be prepared! Watch out!
Flood Warning
Flooding expected affecting homes, businesses and main roads. Act now!
Severe Flood Warning
Severe Flooding expected. Imminent danger to life and property. Act now!
Information Transmission, Exchange and Dissemination, cont.
• Mass media at all levels have a crucial role in assuring widenedand effective warning dissemination and awareness raising.
• Education and training for the media is required.
• Message content to be as simple as possible for end-users and to be provided in a timely manner to facilitate appropriate action.
• Message delivery systems must be as cost effective, replicable and simple as possible for system operators, particularly local government.
• Although false alarm are risks that must be acknowledged the credibility of the message is crucial for initial project acceptance and consequent community ownership.
• Community-level strategic dialogue must merge technical knowledge with indigenous knowledge in a socio-culturally appropriate manner, to capitalise on existing knowledge and capacities and maximise the longevity of ownership and sustainability.
• Piloting, diverse, innovative and unorthodox project implementation strategies have been one means of achieving accuracy, acceptability and sustainability.
• Gender to be considered in each component of the system.
• Simulations, evaluations a posteriori and continued follow-up have identified long-term flaws and / or successes in DIPECHO EW implementation strategies.
Appropriateness
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•EWS are dependent upon the sustained investment of all stakeholders at multiple levels before, during and upon completion of the project cycle, the absence of this will result in project failure.
•Full involvement of communities from problem identification, to project conception + design through implementation to evaluationand long-term hazard monitoring and management is essential.
•Systems born of the attitudes, evaluations and strategic parameters of external actors alone will not be sustained.
•Government / institutional appreciation of the importance of DRMwithin poverty alleviation is limited – multi-stakeholder advocacy at regional, national, sub-national and local levels is required.
Comprehensive stakeholder participation
Comprehensive stakeholder participation, cont.
•Do not attempt the establishment of an EWS system unless there is genuine grass roots demand.
•EWS is to have relevance from the perspective of the end-user and may therefore address concerns that are rooted in risk to livelihoods rather than threat to life.
•Perceived usefulness and effectiveness of a system is indispensable for project acceptance and therefore sustained end-user and system operator ownership.
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• Operation and maintenance of EWS is often a bottleneck for sustainability - therefore low cost solutions and technical assistance designs must reflect budgetary commitment realistically expected.
• Components requiring maintenance by the community or individuals must be relevant to the lives of community members.
• ‘Calibrate’ the system over time for all communities at risk.
Operation and Maintenance
• Ultimately effectiveness of EWS depends upon decisions at the very lowest level, made by the household or individual. These decisions (+ actions) ultimately determine system success or failure.
• Facilitating awareness of, and timely decision-making for, appropriate risk reducing measures is challenging; requiring both community and household awareness, achieved through comprehensive education as to the nature of hazards, vulnerabilities, existing capacities and appropriate actions.
• Education requires two elements that are often in short supply -time and sustained investment.
• Incorporation of DRM in school curricula has proved moderately successful in seeking heightened awareness and behavioural adjustment.
Education
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• Community cohesion and social capital must be considered in any activity - but should come of identification of risk reduction measures by the community.
• Community awareness and participation are indispensable in assuring effective and sustainable systems:
‘where the [community] are cognisant of the relationships between the differing facets of every day and disaster risk, the obvious thing to do is to simultaneously attack these apparently different problems. Cognisance of the fact that both disaster and every day risk have similar origins is a starting point for promoting integrated sustainable and environmentally secure development schemes’, La RED.
In Conclusion
Thank You