People Centred Hazard and Vulnerability Mitigation in Disaster Risk Management

Aims of the project

The aim of the project is to enhance resilience and well being and reduce disaster risk through the establishment of ‘Risk and Resilience Committees’. The approach recognizes that communities already have the capacity to work together to benefit themselves but aims to establish a context in which this might fruitfully operate to increase disaster resilience specifically. The facilitators of this initiative are academics from Disaster and Development Centre (DDC) Northumbria University, Disaster Management and Sustainable Development Centre (DMSDC) Kathmandu University, Ministry of Local Development, Nepal , BRAC University, Bangladesh and B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences (BPKIHS), engaging in what might be termed ‘action research’. The aim is to enable the endogenous identification of risk; an assessment of the relative significance of various risks; the establishment of a community-based approach to the design and implementation of strategies that might reduce risk. In this process, demands for information by committees might be fed back to academic institutions; students might be involved in conducting research; and findings might inform teaching. Furthermore, Risk and Resilience Committees may also draw from other sources of information from key people outside of the committee in their own community and others in Bangladesh and Nepal. This may facilitate the flow of indigenous knowledge, or the experience of similar groups that will become established in other areas. Links with the media will be maintained throughout the process to enable informed reporting and for the activities of the committee(s) to be publicized.

The partnership will contribute to strengthening capacity of practitioner orientated academics in three institutions to influence policy and practice in disaster risk reduction. As such the benefits to each institution are as great as to the others. The link will facilitate exchange of ideas and examining ways forward for disaster and development work in the context of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The combination of teaching and learning activities with local research initiatives led by the partner institutions in Nepal and Bangladesh will help bring local realities into the policy domain through the channel of nationally and internationally respected academics and research. Research in this context is however part of capacity building and curriculum development. The subject focus is highly directed at the main MDG to reduce poverty. The initiative will also progress international action towards a more people centred version of hazard and vulnerability mitigation.

The Future

The implementation of this strategy has begun in Pachkhal Valley, Kavre District, Nepal. Pachkhal Valley Risk and Resilience Committee (PVRRC) has been formed in March 2007 followed by Dhankuta Municipality Risk and Resilience Committee in June 2007 in the eastern hill of Nepal in coordination with Ministry of Local Development Nepal and Community Medicine Department, BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences (BPKIHS). It is planned to establish in Bangladesh in third year. Should this be successful funding may be sought to expand the establishment of committees across Bangladesh and Nepal. The Ministry of Local Development expressed an interest in the project from the start. They recommend that the project begin with a ‘cluster’ of VDCs, to be consistent with initiative later planned by the Ministry to create ‘municipality’ from the mergence of semi-rural VDCs (e.g. in case of Pachkhal valley). In the longer term, it is hoped that the committee(s) will engage with the monitoring of risk and develop response strategies to enhance disaster preparedness (and become a point of contact for any external agencies for a coordinated response) and be self-sustaining.

This Project has a strong commitment to placing people vulnerable to disasters in the centre of the higher education teaching. The project will continue its efforts to make selected Bangladeshi and Nepalese communities resilient to localised hazards. Local facilitators will assume a crucial role based on the localised risk of the communities to adapt teaching materials in higher education. Ongoing learning, resilience building and participatory local risk monitoring of selected research field areas will be vital for the project success.