Richard C. Hazel is an International member of the Black Emergency Managers Association and originally posted this article for publication in the area of public investment and disaster risk reduction.
Resilience is a
word that has become much touted in discussions surrounding disaster risk
reduction (DRR). As a goal and a standard it represents a true litmus test for
how effectively a community or nation has performed across all phases of the disaster
management cycle. It requires long term strategies that involve demonstrable
commitments to DRR including multidisciplinary partnerships amongst key
stakeholders, continuous knowledge development, and investments that are
financial and intellectual in nature. The goal of resilience cannot be achieved
if mitigation remains the most underserved phase of the disaster management cycle.
This article examines long term mitigation as an essential prerequisite to the
overarching goal of disaster resilience amongst communities and its role in the
priority established by the Hyogo Framework for Action to utilize “knowledge, innovation,
and education to build a culture of safety and resilience at all levels”.
Human history coupled with the forces of nature continually
serve as a reminder that disasters care little for socio-economic conditions,
electoral boundaries, seasonally dependent industries or stock market outcomes.
“The losses, costs, and impacts of future natural disasters will be the consequence
of today’s mitigation decisions and nondecisions”.1 In our efforts to prepare
for, respond to and recover from the adverse impacts of a disaster event,
mitigation maintains a unique role in this iterative process. It has been
stated that unlike the other emergency management disciplines, mitigation
“looks at long-term solutions to reducing risk as opposed to preparedness for hazards,
the immediate response to a hazard, or the short-term recovery from a hazard”.2
It has also been viewed as “the only component
of comprehensive emergency management that has the potential to break the cycle
of damage and reconstruction that can occur when a community is subjected to
repeated natural hazards”.3 Whether
either perspective is preferred or disputed, mitigation can remain
distinguished as the most event-independent phase of the disaster cycle. (see
figure 1)
Figure 1. Event-driven versus Event independent phases of the Disaster Management Cycle
Just as essential operational and response characteristics
typify participants in the event driven phases of the cycle; mitigation in its
true form demands an even greater commitment. It requires a diverse set of
stakeholders whose efforts to achieve the resilience goal must remain unwavering
well beyond the advent or aftermath of any singular disaster event.
For developing countries this may also require the active
participation of regional or international stakeholders and policy
considerations of a political, economic, social and environmental nature that
may quickly extend the scope beyond the existing mandate of local disaster and emergency
management professionals. The most important decisions to be made by public and
private stakeholders are deliberated and transpire long after the focusing
event has occurred and faded from the media headlines and public outcry. Therefore
a tendency to prioritize the visible activities of the event driven phases to
the detriment of mitigation could stem from the fact that “disasters and
emergencies provide excellent windows of opportunity for public officials to demonstrate
their leadership capabilities and their willingness to tackle difficult
problems”4 whilst recognizing that a failure to resolve
such visible issues in an efficient manner can easily endanger an incumbent
administration’s political future.
Increased proficiency across the event-driven phases of
preparedness, response and recovery whilst neglecting long term mitigation
activities will not achieve the goal of resilience. The Hyogo Framework’s
established priorities are reasonable, but for many developing nations the
harsh reality may be that their local disaster and emergency management
agencies are viewed as deserving neither elevated concern in the order of investment
priorities, nor an equal seat at the public investment table alongside
traditional GDP stalwarts such as Tourism,
Agriculture and Manufacturing. Unless an actual disaster event has occurred and
is threatening to negatively impact the normalcy of economic activities, DRR priorities
may be easily superseded by seemingly more acute needs.
Resilience as a goal emphasizes “planning and strategic
mitigation…it aims to thwart, diminish, or curtail a disaster’s worst effects
well in advance of calamity... it is deliberate, strategic, and enduring for
the affected community”.5
Mitigation as its principal prerequisite requires the
willingness to sacrifice returning to old norms which may themselves be
culpable for the resulting disaster consequences. It is a shared responsibility
that will test the resolve of political leaderships, private sector entities
and civil society to adopt a proactive mitigation posture that charts a path toward
resilience. The neglect of mitigation as a key element in risk reduction
strategy is often borne out in the exacerbated impacts of recurrent hazard
events on the most vulnerable nations. Locations at highest risk are
predominantly occupied by financially vulnerable communities. Such population
segments are generally unable to independently recover from any disruption
without significant external assistance, are often unaware of the true nature
of the hazards inherent in the locations they inhabit, or may have simply
chosen to ignore such risks in light of promised disaster recovery assistance
from local governments or international agencies6.
As the forces of nature continue to intensify (either as a
direct result of greater human/technological interactions with the environment
or just the evolutionary nature inherent in any living planet), it also
increases the probability that we experience more frequent disaster events that
threaten to disrupt or paralyze the socio-economic conditions we have come to
expect. For example it has been stated that “economic losses worldwide from natural
disasters in the 1990s could have been reduced by as much as $280 billion by
investing only as much as $40 billion in risk reduction strategies”.7
Decades later in the presence of
such prior information, it still presents an easier alternative to focus
efforts on heightened preparedness activities and short term investment in
response and recovery efforts. Much of what can be done to elevate this phase
in policy consideration is feasible and well within reach but may have been
avoided to delay unpopular decisions and sacrificing of old norms. Any meaningful
effort aimed at building resilient communities and nations cannot avoid the
hard decisions inherent in mitigation.
The pervasive nature of new media for communication and
information sharing must be integrated into disaster management activities that
assist in knowledge development and stimulating a culture of disaster
resilience. Mainstream and new media entities often focus their reporting almost
exclusively on the response and immediate recovery efforts. This can
inadvertently convey to the public that a disaster event is successfully resolved
once the recovery phase is complete. Ending the focus here ignores the critical
risk reduction role of mitigation. An enlightened media can help ensure that
mitigation becomes the phase of greater concern and discussion amongst the
affected population, adjacent communities and an action item for elected
decision makers.
International lending and development agencies are key
stakeholders for many developing nations and their involvement in key aspects
of mitigation can be facilitated without usurping the sovereign authority of
country governments. The economic uncertainty gripping many leading nations
will be magnified in lesser developed nations for several years to come. The
ability of G20 countries to provide the expected levels of pre and post disaster
financial and technical assistance to other nations will be severely tested.
What this means for disasters of the future is that larger numbers of vulnerable
people may resort to taking greater risks. “Growth pressures in communities
have resulted in the failure of governments to enact stricter building and
disaster prevention standards that would reduce the need for and the cost of disaster
response and recovery.”8 Public and private sector leaders will
continue to make prudent budget decisions addressing immediate economic
concerns but may also relegate mitigation to the back seat of policy
priorities.
International lending and development institutions can
ensure that disaster mitigation efforts become one of the key metrics in a
‘balanced scorecard’ approach to their assessments and reports on the economic
stability and outlook of vulnerable nations. At the same time care must be
taken to ensure that any preconditions attached to loan or development
assistance do not inadvertently derail local efforts to pursue DRR strategies. Failure
to ensure that mitigation’s role in DRR is fully understood and supported at
all levels through multidisciplinary efforts, makes the goal of resilience more
elusive than it needs to be.
We are now inside the final segment of the Hyogo Framework’s
initial 2015 timeline for substantive reductions in repetitive disaster losses.
In facing the economic uncertainties and climate variability of another year,
the final critique of how well we lived up to our obligation to build a culture
of resilience hinges on our collective success or failure to pursue proactive
mitigation measures well in advance of the next disaster event.
Richard Hazel
Graduate Student in the Crisis, Emergency and
Risk Management Program,
Institute for Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management
The George Washington
University
rhazel@gwu.edu
Works Cited
1 Mileti, D. S. (1999). Disasters by Design: A Reassessment
of Natural Hazards in the United States.
Washington, DC:
Joseph Henry Press. p.65
2 Haddow, G. D., Bullock, J. A., & Coppola, D. P. (2008).
Introduction to Emergency Management. (3rd ed.). Burlington,
MA, USA:
Elsevier Inc. p.75
3 Unit of Sustainable Development and Environment. (1997).
USAID/OAS Caribbean Disaster Mitigation Project Planning
to Mitigate the Impacts of Natural Hazards in the Caribbean.
Retrieved from: http://www.oas.org/cdmp/document/mitiplan/mit
manl.pdf p.II-1
4 Sylves, R. T. (2008). Disaster Policy and Politics:
Emergency Management and Homeland Security. Washington,
DC: CQ Press. p.18 Page 3 of 3
5 McCreight, R. (2010). Resilience as a Goal and Standard
in Emergency Management. Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management
7(1):15.
6 Hazel, R. C. (2011). Socio-economic Indifference to
Natural Forces: Can Proactive
Land use Policies Make New Orleans
a Resilient City?
Unpublished manuscript, Department of Engineering Management & Systems Engineering,
The George Washington University, Washington, DC.
7 Charvériat, C. (2000). Natural Disasters in Latin
America and the Caribbean: An Overview of
Risk. Retrieved from
http://www.iadb.org/res/publications/pubfiles/pub WP-434.pdf
pp.90-91
8 Ward, R., & Wamsley, G. (2007). From a Painful Past to
an Uncertain Future. In C. Rubin (Ed.), Emergency Management: The American
Experience 1900-2005.Fairfax, VA: Public Entity Risk Institute. p.233
