Disastrous Measures: Conceptualizing and Measuring Disaster Risk Reduction

Despite the large amount of research into disaster risk reduction [DRR], there remain significant difficulties in attempting to measure the impact of these policies. In particular, an urgent priority is the need to produce a theoretical framework for researchers and practitioners to enable the comparative assessment of the success of DRR policies. The measurement of these policies is unsatisfactory, creating a situation where it is almost impossible to assess how well the resources committed to these policies translate to improving DRR in at-risk communities. This article proposes an innovative approach to the measurement of DRR through a minimal procedural operationalization of the concept. The paper illustrates the utility of the framework through presentation of original survey data about individual DRR among residents of California. The results indicate that although most people are aware of measures of individual DRR, they have not advanced beyond that stage to plan and implement those measures themselves. The article marks a critical step towards the better measurement of success of intractable policy initiatives through the introduction of a novel measure of DRR

Emergency response plans: panacea for emergency preparedness and control in university libraries in Nigeria

The study examined library personnel awareness of the availability of emergency response plans, their forms and roles in safety routine preparedness and control in federal and state university libraries in Southwest Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach The survey research design alongside a multi‐stage sampling procedure comprising purposive, randomisation and total enumeration techniques guided the study. The population consisted of 327 library personnel drawn from 12 federal and state university libraries (i.e., six each). The questionnaire and structured interview methods were used for data gathering. Of the 327 copies of the questionnaire administered, 249 copies, representing 76.1%, were duly completed and found valid for analysis. Whereas the acceptance threshold of ≥90% response rate and a criterion mean of 2.50 were adopted for making judgements regarding the research questions, while the hypothesis was tested using chisquare statistics with cross‐tabulation

Assessing the Impact of Household Participation on Satisfaction and Safe Design in Humanitarian Shelter Projects

Participation has long been considered important for post‐disaster recovery. Establishing what constitutes participation in post‐disaster shelter projects, however, has remained elusive, and the links between different types of participation and shelter programme outcomes are not well understood. Furthermore, recent case studies suggest that misguided participation strategies may be to blame for failures. This study analysed 19 shelter projects implemented in the Philippines following Typhoon Haiyan in November 2013 to identify the forms of participation employed. Using fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis, it assessed how household participation in the planning, design, and construction phases of shelter reconstruction led to outcomes of household satisfaction and safe shelter design. Participation was operationalised via eight central project tasks, revealing that the involvement of households in the early planning stages of projects and in construction activities were important for satisfaction and design outcomes, whereas engagement during the design phase of projects had little impact on the selected outcomes.National Science Foundation, United States Agency for International Development Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, Nicolas R. and Nancy D. Petry Fellowship in Construction Engineering and Managemen

The Italian Response to the COVID-19 Crisis: Lessons Learned and Future Direction in Social Development:

Against the backdrop of a continuously changing situation, the aim of this paper is to discuss the impact of COVID-19 crisis in Italy, the government response to cope with the crisis and the major lessons learned during its management. The analysis shows how Italy's response has been characterised by some rapid measures to tackle the health crisis, but few plans in the mitigation stage and a lack of community involvement. This contribution stress the importance of a cultural shift, through the effort to apply in practice the principles already indicated in the main global policy frameworks to guide disaster management. A community social development approach can help to build concrete actions in this direction

Drivers for coping with flood hazards: Beyond the analysis of single cases

Flood risks continue to pose serious threats to developing countries with dire ramifications for livelihoods. Yet, contemporary research on determinants for coping with flood hazards is driven mostly by individual cases with less effort to systematically identify coping strategies across multiple floods cases. This research analyses potential determinants of coping strategies to flooding across multiple floods using two case studies in Cameroon. Via empirical research, and qualitative/descriptive statistical analysis, the research investigated how human, social and economic/financial variables influence household coping decisions across the two flood sties. Results suggests a great influence of social and human capital on household decisions to adopt specific coping strategies, and that over 80% of flood victims in both study sites applied post-flood informal coping strategies. Analysis also shows significant inconsistencies with human capital variables, which reveal that coping determinants can be quite different even for floods occurring in the same agro-ecological zone. The findings also reveal that economic and financial capital has little influence on flood victims’ coping decisions, contrary to popular contentions in the literature. The results of this study have implications for research and policy implementation on flood-induced coping strategies in developing countries. Key words: coping strategies, determinants, flood hazards, multiple case

Situating preparedness education within public pedagogy

Both ‘disaster preparedness’ and ‘public pedagogy’ have been broadly defined and diversely utilised. Preparedness has been dealt within the disciplines such as civil engineering, sociology of disasters, public health and psychology, rather than education. Recently, inquiries into the learning and teaching of preparedness is increasing in the field of education, and some of them position preparedness education within the field of public pedagogy. However, conceptual discussion as to how and why the two fields are associated has been limited. The primary aim of this paper is to fill this gap by drawing on public pedagogy literature that conceptualises ‘publics’ and ‘pedagogies’. By doing so, the paper attempts to respond to Burdick et al’s call for Problematizing Public Pedagogy

Following the footsteps: Urbanisation of Wa Municipality and its synergism in risk accumulation, uncertainties and complexities in urban Ghana.

Global demographic characteristics have witnessed a significant shift with more than half of the world's population crossing the rural-urban threshold in 2008. In Ghana, the 2010 census report revealed 50.9% urban population. While the many benefits of organised and efficient cities are well understood, it must be recognised that rapid, often unplanned urbanisation brings risk of profound social instability, risk to critical infrastructure, potential water crises and the potential for devastating spread of disease. These risks can only be further exacerbated as this unprecedented transition from rural to urban areas continues. This also means stakes are high for public and private interventions to ensure that urbanisation reinforces rather than retards prosperity. In spite of these past experiences, urban governance policies in emerging smaller cities are frequently ambivalent and piecemeal, exhibiting similar negative tendencies, a development that has received less academic attention. This study adopted multiple research techniques and the data were generated through a structured questionnaire survey, personal interviews and discussions. Based on our conviction that the development trajectory of any city hinges on the quality of its physical foundation, we seek to fill the knowledge gap using the Wa Municipality, the least urbanised but one of the fastest urbanising cities in Ghana today, as a case study. The results reveal emerging tendencies that indicate that Wa appears to be following in the footsteps of its predecessors - experiencing an inefficient potable water supply system and chronic sanitation situation, making diarrhoea one of many challenges for residents. It is ultimately suggested that a collaborative partnership with all key stakeholders is a better option to reap the potential for urbanisation to strengthen economic growth and development