3rd African Drought Adaptation Forum report, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 17-19 September 2008

The Third African Drought Adaptation Forum was held in September 2008 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The Forum was organized so that participants could exchange practical experiences, findings and ideas on how to adapt to the increasing threat of drought and climate change in the drylands of Africa. The report contains a summary of sessions and outlines key themes that emerged from the discussions

Sendai five years on: reflections on the role of international law in the creation and reduction of disaster risk

This article offers a critical examination of the position of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 within international law. It is argued that any interrogation into the role of international law must begin not with existing disaster risk reduction (DRR) laws and policies, but rather with an enquiry into the nature of disaster risk and the role of international law in its creation and reduction. It is demonstrated how, while areas such as international human rights law can be utilized to enforce obligations in support of DRR, other areas – in particular international investment law – actively work to undermine DRR efforts. In order for international law to be a productive tool in the reduction of disaster risk international lawyers must engage with critical work in disaster studies in order to explore the role that the former has played – and can play – in creating and addressing hazards, vulnerabilities and capacities

Disaster Management Education through Higher Education – Industry Collaboration in the Built Environment

Effectively responding to the current and dynamic construction labour market requirements is a major responsibility of higher education institutions (HEIs). HEIs aim to reduce the mismatch between what they deliver and what is required by the industry. Built environment professionals require continuous update of knowledge and education in order to effectively contribute to disaster management. However, the complex and multidisciplinary nature of disaster management education pose a challenge to the higher education institutions to make them more responsive to the industrial needs and to prepare the students for careers in disaster resilience. Adopting a lifelong learning approach would be appropriate for HEIs to maintain a through-life studentship and to provide disaster related knowledge and education on a continuous basis to respond to the labour market requirements. However, incorporating lifelong learning approach within the system of higher education is not easy and straightforward for HEIs. This is mainly because of the formal and bureaucratic nature of HEIs that acts as a barrier for providing effective lifelong learning education. In resolving this issue, HEIs are increasingly relying on the benefits associated with fostering close collaboration with external organisations such as industries, professional bodies and communities. In this context, this paper discusses the role of HEIs in providing disaster management education, the challenges associated with it, and the way of addressing the challenges through the higher education industry collaboration

Education and Disaster Vulnerability in Southeast Asia: Evidence and Policy Implications

This article summarizes the growing theoretical and empirical literature on the impact of education on disaster vulnerability with a focus on Southeast Asia. Education and learning can take place in different environments in more or less formalized ways. They can influence disaster vulnerability as the capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist, and recover from natural hazard in direct and indirect ways. Directly, through education and learning, individuals acquire knowledge, abilities, skills and perceptions that allow them to effectively prepare for and cope with the consequences of disaster shocks. Indirectly, education gives individuals and households access to material, informational and social resources, which can help reducing disaster vulnerability. We highlight central concepts and terminologies and discuss the different theoretical mechanisms through which education may have an impact. Supportive empirical evidence is presented and discussed with a particular focus on the role of inclusiveness in education and challenges in achieving universal access to high-quality education. Based on situation analysis and best practice cases, policy implications are derived that can inform the design and implementation of education and learning-based disaster risk reduction efforts in the region

Tourism resilience in the context of integrated destination and disaster management (DM2)

The disaster management principles should be integrated into the destination management plans to enhance resilience of tourist destinations to natural disasters. The success of such integration depends on the extent of tourism stakeholder collaboration, but this topic remains understudied, especially in the Caribbean. This paper evaluates tourism resilience in Grenada. It finds that local tourism stakeholders are well aware of the potential damage natural disasters can inflict on the destination but fail to develop effective measures to build destination-wide and organizational resilience. The paper proposes an action framework to aid tourism stakeholders in Grenada to more effectively plan for disasters

Just transitions for a Climate-Resilient Development in Africa – Transforming Dialogue into Action

CCDA-X1, hosted by the Government of Namibia, convened on the theme: “Just transitions for a Climate-Resilient Development in Africa – Transforming Dialogue into Action” in collaboration with Africa’s civil society organisations, academia, development partners, regional and international organisations and the private sector. The conference resulted in the following key messages to be taken forward to COP27 by Namibia

Urban resilience:two diverging interpretations

This paper uses two diverging interpretations of resilience to review and assess current UK policies for urban resilience. Both developed in scientific studies, the first interpretation is based on a mechanistic model of systems that can recover their original state after shocks, and the second is based on an evolutionary model enabling adaptation to disturbances. The literature review demonstrates that at present urban resilience is predominantly associated with the former. By contrast, only few policies and studies are inspired by the latter, although this is better suited to analyse dynamics of urban adaptation and manage cities accordingly. The contribution of this paper to an understanding of urban resilience is therefore twofold. First, an identification of the long-term consequences on the built environment associated with each model is provided, with the mechanical model ultimately hindering adaptation. Second, some approaches to generate effective responses to environmental and societal change are identified. Ultimately, this paper emphasises that the idea of a resilient city is fit for this age characterised by uncertainty, albeit it requires the recognition within planning practice that urban adaptation cannot be attained with current methodologies, and that much can be learned from theories on the resilience of ecosystems.

Psychosocial Capacity Building in Response to Cascading Disasters: A Culturally Informed Approach

The dominant paradigm guiding mental health professionals responding to major disasters is the field of \u27disaster mental health\u27, which historically focused more on psychological factors than social factors, privileging individual over collective interventions. However, resilience to complex events is a result of multiple drivers, such as social networks and local culture, that must be considered together in the assessment and planning process. This paper adopts a multi-disciplinary perspective for disaster response, applying a social-ecological approach to disaster risk reduction which has been developed through practice and a review of the literature. In particular, we investigated how psychosocial healing, collective efficacy and social justice as intertwined aspects of the recovery process may inhibit the escalation of cascading disasters. The article argues that psychosocial capacity building can be used in disaster preparation as well as to respond to cascading events, as the escalation of secondary emergencies caused by the loss of vital services can heavily influence collective behaviors, and hinder the response capacity of emergency services. Our research suggests that adopting a multi-systemic approach, drawing on local cultural practices, can deepen the capacity of local people to take control over their own process of healing and psychosocial restoration, enhancing a sustainable recovery process. The conclusions suggest some possible applications for responders, utilizing groups and activities, and raise questions for researchers in the field