Rhetoric and Ground Reality of Institutionalizing Disaster Risk Reduction

Abstract

The Indian Ocean Tsunami of 26th December 2004 and the Hyogo Framework for Action (2005–2015) endorsed by more than 168 national governments at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction at Kobe in 2005 compelled the national leadership in many countries in South Asia to establish appropriate institutional mechanisms for strengthening disaster preparedness, institutionalizing disaster risk reduction and improving emergency preparedness in these countries. However, the pursuit of developmental priorities without factoring in the disaster risk and vulnerability profiles of these countries at the national, provincial and local levels is resulting in recurring disasters with enormous damage to property, assets and infrastructure as indicated by the recent disasters in the region. Lessons of past disasters and the Risk, Vulnerability and Hazard Profiles of disaster-prone areas are being ignored, which is resulting in repeated occurrence of sudden onset disasters affecting the lives and livelihoods of marginalized communities. The sterling examples of disaster risk reduction in the cyclone prone areas of Bangladesh and the success of early warning dissemination and large scale evacuation of disaster-prone communities from the way of harm before the Cyclone Phailin made its landfall in Odisha in India in October 2013, thereby reducing the loss of lives significantly, need to be replicated and scaled up in other developing countries by mobilizing community participation. This Chapter reviews the institutional mechanisms for disaster risk reduction in South Asian countries, analyses the post-tsunami policy pronouncements of countries in South Asia and evaluates the post-tsunami implementation of policy directives at the national and provincial levels. It is argued that the goals of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation will continue to elude us until the communities at risk empower themselves to internalize these concerns as a culture of preparedness, risk reduction and emergency response by strengthening community resilience through people-led, people-owned and people-managed social transformation initiatives.