This study demonstrates that all three frameworks recognize, to some extent, the need to empower or involve local people to participate in DRR in their own communities. But there are important differences in the ways in which this is done in each of the frameworks, as well as a marked shift over time from respectful inclusion of local communities and knowledge toward a more top-down approach to DRR.
4.1 From Yokohama to Hyogo: Increased Top-Down Perspective on Community Involvement
Written over two decades ago, the Yokohama Strategy already reflected the spirit of much of what has subsequently been written about indigenous and traditional knowledge and local participation (see Sect.
3.1). This framework offers clear articulation of the importance of nuanced understandings of how people perceive and respond to hazards given their belief systems, priorities, and the resources at their disposal. This echoes much of the academic literature on the importance of understanding local perceptions of vulnerability and motivations and constraints to action (Roncoli et al.
2008; Carr
2014; Carr and Owusu-Daaku
2015). It also relates to the need to build partnerships among scientists, development practitioners, and local communities that ensure that all relevant parties are heard and enabled to influence the DRR process (Mercer et al.
2008).
In its language, the Yokohama Strategy values understanding the local context as a key component of planning and implementing DRR initiatives. Throughout the Yokohama Strategy there are calls to strengthen DRR efforts by “mobilizing” traditional expertise and increasing communities’ self-confidence through “recognition and propagation of traditional knowledge, practices and values” (IDNDR
1994, p. 11). The desired empowerment of local communities comes through understanding local circumstances and harnessing local expertise. Respect for and cooperation with local actors are presented as “essential preconditions for reducing vulnerability” (IDNDR
1994, p. 15). Such respect and recognition of the importance of a nuanced understanding of local circumstances seems lost in the HFA (UNISDR
2005) and in SFDRR (UNISDR
2015) adopted during the decades following the Yokohama Strategy.
Although the brief review of the Yokohama Strategy in the first pages of the HFA reiterates the importance of “involving people in all aspects of DRR in their own local communities” (UNISDR
2005, p. 2), in the HFA there is a notable shift in language and tone. Reference to indigenous knowledge in the HFA is made in the context of incorporating it into top-down advisories. More emphasis is placed on considering cultural heritage in order to develop information appropriate for “target” audiences (UNISDR
2005, p. 9) rather than acknowledging and respecting local circumstances and understandings. HFA, of course, includes references to indigenous and traditional knowledge, but the main motivation beyond these allusions does not appear to be because of local knowledge’s own value for DRR as was the case in the Yokohama Strategy. Instead interest in traditional knowledge is pursued so that DRR early warning systems, information, and training can be appropriately “tailored” to the audience.
A thorough study of HFA’s text indicates that community empowerment is perceived as the result of providing communities with (external, expert) information on vulnerabilities, hazards, and DRR that they can understand, rather than through valuing what people already know about their own vulnerabilities and their personal, often long-term, experience in managing risks. Therefore the tone used in HFA is not one of partnership and collaboration as was put forth in the Yokohama Strategy, but one of how best to incorporate local knowledge to advance the agenda of outside experts and facilitate DRR implementation within certain communities. This point can be illustrated by the following quote:
The information should incorporate relevant traditional and indigenous knowledge and culture heritage and be tailored to different target audiences, taking into account cultural and social factors (UNISDR
2005, p. 9).
The Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015 Mid-Term Review (UNISDR
2011) advocates consistently for the importance of community involvement in DRR, resilience building, and local implementation of the HFA (for examples, see pp. 10, 43, 63, 82). One set of questions posed to experts contributing to the review specifically requested feedback on community participation in DRR (UNISDR
2011, p. 88). The authors express repeated concerns that “inclusion of gender perspective and effective community participation are the areas where the least progress seems to have been made” (UNISDR
2011, p. 44). They also note that grassroots women’s organizations remain marginalized and cut off from the decision-making processes. This “lack” of HFA implementation at the local level has lead to “a significant gap between national and local level action” and “very limited” progress at the local level (UNISDR
2011, p. 46). The review also notes that “the notion of differential vulnerability among different societal groups is not adequately addressed by the new institutional and legislative arrangements, and there are few examples of local knowledge informing policy” (UNISDR
2011, p. 46).
These findings were supported by external analyses. The Global Network of Civil Society Organisations (GNCSO) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) studies examining progress toward HFA participation goals found that communities are still not effectively engaged in DRR decision making (IFRC
2010). In development more broadly, metaevaluations of participatory projects have revealed that because of funding and other processes, key decisions about program implementation need to be made before having consulted with communities (OECD
1997).
The language used in the mid-term review echoes that of the Yokohama Strategy, which advocated greater inclusion of local communities and their knowledge and experience in support of DRR. For instance, the document states that “If development policies and programmes are designed based on self-identified and prioritised needs of vulnerable communities, underlying risks will by necessity be addressed through a multi-sectoral, integrated approach” (UNISDR
2011, p. 49).
The HFA mid-term report also calls attention to the lack of funding to support community implementation, an important impediment to realizing progress at the community level. In the HFA mid-term report, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies expressed the related concern that “national planning and decision-making often does not take into consideration the needs and capacities of the most vulnerable, so resources and support are not provided to enable and empower those who need it most” (UNISDR
2011, p. 49). Without funding streams to “explicitly put disaster risk reduction on the agenda of local governments, it is unlikely to achieve the mainstreaming required for effective local action unless local voices are sufficiently strong to advocate for a prioritization of resources at the local government level in favour of disaster risk reduction” (UNISDR
2011, p. 48). These statements raise the real concern that without better funding, local-level implementation is likely to continue to lag behind national and international plans.
Similar issues with lack of funding at the local level are reported in the academic literature. For instance, in their analysis of HFA implementation in Indonesia, Djalante et al. (
2012) found that one of the barriers to improving DRR at the local scale is a lack of financial resources available to foster risk preparedness and recovery measures. The fragmentation between DRR and other development issues, such as poverty, lead these potentially complementary foci to compete with and draw attention away from each other. Such competition, rather than collaboration, within local institutions is a significant barrier to improving resilience in developing nations. In fact, in poorer nations development problems are often the central focus of local stakeholders (governmental and nongovernmental). For instance, in an analysis of how local budget is allocated by South African municipalities, Taylor, Cartwright, and Sutherland (
2013) point out that resources available for environmental management are often close to zero as local entities tend to focus on salient problems such as poverty, inequity, and unemployment, without realizing that a better management of natural resources is also important for meeting development goals. The same observation can apply to DRR, as building risk resilience among local communities is also part of the development process.
Due to lack of funds, local entities currently tend to rely on national support and international help to face disaster risks or to recover from their impacts (Djalante et al.
2012). Yet, local stakeholders are at the frontline of disaster risk management and are well positioned to coordinate local actions and build community capacities (Taylor et al.
2013; Baudoin et al.
2014). This observation calls for building local governments’ capacities to deal with disaster risks and for increasing local actors’ involvement in the risk reduction process. This finding is supported by research in Africa, which also found that increased participation of civil society—those who can identify local needs and priorities—is necessary to improve DRR effectiveness, making it more context-specific and ensuring ownership (as opposed to just a partnership) in the DRR process (Olowu
2010).
Drawing on these lessons in order to “ensure more emphasis on local implementation of the HFA,” the mid-term report makes several recommendations for the HFA moving forward, and presumably for future frameworks (SFDRR) (UNISDR
2011, p. 61). The recommendations include “mapping local dimensions of hazards and vulnerabilities,” “two-way communication between local and national levels,” and “strengthening participatory planning approaches” (UNISDR
2011, p. 63). These lessons reinforce the need for more genuine engagement of international and national actors with community actors in order to build resilience at the local level.
Some may see HFA as one of the impetuses to promote a greater participatory approach in DRR (Pelling
2007), but our text analysis highlights gaps in the way this framework promotes involvement and inclusion of local governmental and nongovernmental actors within the DRR process. An increased collaboration among local governments and communities would help support DRR planning at this scale (Mercer et al.
2008). This was recognized in academia and in the mid-term review of HFA. Using existing lessons, such as those put forth in HFA mid-term review or those extracted from past disaster experiences, would contribute to improving future frameworks aimed at reducing disaster risks (Glantz et al.
2014). Unfortunately the language used in SFDRR does not reflect a mainstreaming of existing lessons, despite calls found in the literature and the HFA mid-term review.
4.2 SFDRR: Increased Focus on Technology, Less Emphasis on Local Knowledge’s Value for DRR
Despite the cautions in the HFA mid-term review, SFDRR appears to make an even more pronounced shift toward top-down advocacy of a DRR agenda rather than a shift toward more meaningful partnerships with local actors. Like HFA, SFDRR mentions the need for “people-centered” DRR, as well as engagement and partnership with “all of society” and “special attention to people disproportionately affected by disasters, especially the poorest” (UNISDR
2015, p. 8). This support entails providing incentives, however, “complementing” scientific knowledge with local knowledge “where appropriate,” and “disseminating disaster risk information” (UNISDR
2015, p. 11). The framework calls for “assign[ing…] clear roles and tasks to community representatives,” language indicative of a top-down approach rather than collaborative processes (UNISDR
2015, p. 1). Verbs like “disseminate” and “tailor” are used more frequently in the latter frameworks than in the Yokohama Strategy, which further reinforces the notion of a one-way flow of knowledge from experts to recipient communities.
The importance placed upon science, technology, and other forms of external “western” expertise relative to discussion of community, traditional knowledge, and involvement solidifies the expert-driven narrative of SFDRR. Although the number of references to community participation and local knowledge remain constant throughout the three frameworks, references to science, technology, and research increase dramatically from Yokohama to Sendai. For example, Yokohama mentions science 10 times, the HFA 9 times, and Sendai 21 times (for a more complete word count, see Table
4). This new trend may reflect an increased focus, at the global scale, on science and technology as the answer to major global problems, such as those posed by disasters and projected climate change impacts (Glantz et al.
2014).
Table 4
Word counts from each of the frameworks
People-centered | 0 | 1 (people-centered EWSs) | 2 |
Participatory/participation (community) | 3 | 3 (one of these in a footnote) | 2 |
Stakeholder participation | 0 | 1 | 5 |
Women | 1 | 2 (one of these in a footnote) | 5 |
Technology | 6 | 3 (twice transfer) | 18 (sometimes more than once in a paragraph) |
Technology transfer | 2 | 2 | 6 |
Science/scientific community/scientific | 10 | 9 | 21 (often in same paragraph) |
Gender | 0 | 4 (one of these in footnote) | 4 |
Research | 5 | 7 (once as heading of an entire subsection) | 14 |
Indigenous | 1 (NGOs) | 1 (knowledge) | 4 (2 as people, 1 as knowledge, 1 as both) |
Disability/disabilities/disabled | 0 | 1 | 5 |
Traditional knowledge | 6 (methods, coping mechanisms, expertise) | 1 (at same time as indigenous knowledge) | 3 (twice with indigenous) |
Technological | 4 (3 as tech disasters) | 2 | 8 (once in footnote, once in overarching goal/outcome on p. 7) |
All-levels | 3 | 18 | 19 |
Local level | 1 | 8 | 15 |
Local context | 0 | 1 | 2 |
Local needs | 0 | 1 | 3 (1 direct, 2 in spirit) |
Local communities | 3 | 2 | 4 |
Community-based | 0 | 2 (once organizations, once trainings) | 2 (both in reference to organizations) |
Community (as in local, not international or scientific) | 5 | 4 | 9 |
Empower | 2 | 1 | 6 |
Tailor | 0 | 1 | 4 |
Assign | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Disseminate/dissemination (of information or data) | 5 | 9 | 14 |
One area of potential progress in SFDRR is the more detailed elaboration of relevant stakeholders. SFDRR contains a section, absent from the other frameworks, on the “Role of Stakeholders.” This section specifically highlights the need for the engagement of women, children and youth, persons with disabilities, the elderly, indigenous peoples, and migrants among other civil society actors. Nevertheless, the majority of references to the community level are vague calls for action at “all levels” or including “all stakeholders” without recognizing or addressing the obvious challenges that must be met to foster meaningful participation of community actors, which was made apparent in the HFA mid-term review.
Interestingly, the SFDRR appears to disregard many of the recommendations from the HFA mid-term review. Although the review pointed out that lack of funding is a key impediment to local level implementation, SFDRR Priority 3, “Investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience” does not mention or emphasize channelling funds to lower levels. SFDRR also does not mention two-way communication, feedback, and participatory planning, nor does the SFDRR document suggest how to foster more meaningful engagement among communities in the implementation of SFDRR.
Several interrelated explanations are possible for the SFDRR’s failure to reflect feedback from the HFA mid-term review. The hierarchical nature of the Third UN WCDRR in Sendai (and perhaps of all international negotiations) makes it difficult for local or community-based actors to participate in framework negotiations and to speak to the challenges of local-level implementation. Only those with adequate connections to accredited organizations were able to attend the primary sessions in Sendai, and only higher-level officials participated in the negotiations and the drafting of framework language. Public, community, and NGO actors were largely restricted to public forums and other venues. Hence, by their very nature, such negotiations are dominated by state and regional actors who likely have less of a grasp on local-level implementation and may be less inclined to broach important questions of how to create more meaningful connections across scales. Whatever the cause, given the poor record of engagement over the last 20 years and the repeated calls for improvement, lack of further specification—or at least recognition of the need to improve communication and feedback across scales—is disappointing and worthy of further investigation.
4.3 Summary of Comparative Analysis
The Yokohama Strategy, and to some degree the HFA, valued community empowerment and local expertise as important components of DRR. In the SFDRR, however, most references to community come in the form of passing, vague references to integration of “all levels”—from international to local. Rather than valuing local understandings, the emphasis is on providing support to the most vulnerable (most exposed, poorest communities) in the form of information or other kinds of external, often technology-based, expertise. These references are reminders to integrate local people into top-down plans rather than calls for partnerships and cross-scale collaborations that are necessary for improved DRR. The tone suggests that local communities are helpless and in need of externally-driven efforts to prepare for, cope with, and recover from natural hazards; such a position clearly neglects the widely acknowledged fact (in academia and official reports) that local communities have been interacting with their own environments for centuries, thus endowing them with a significant collective experience in risk reduction that is valuable to any DRR framework (Hansen et al.
2011; Baudoin et al.
2014).
Despite the fact that each framework seems to support some kind of community involvement, none of them outlines the mode of participation that will best contribute to achieving framework goals or suggests how to deal with the myriad complications made evident by a literature review on participatory methods. This conclusion is not surprising when we look at the adoption and implementation of other international strategies. For instance, past experience with the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), another top-down initiative advocating participatory projects, points to the challenges of getting meaningful participation at all levels (Shivernje
2005; Mpepo and Seshamani
2005). In Kenya, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) failed to enforce provisions requiring engagement of civil society in plan development (Shivernje
2005). In Zambia, civil society was able to secure a prominent role in drafting the PRSP, but the government has been slow to provide it with information necessary to monitor and evaluate progress, and the poor, the program’s principal targets, have been excluded from the process (Mpepo and Seshamani
2005). In both instances, achieving meaningful participation required more than top-down encouragement. This is a relevant lesson that could have been used to prepare later international conventions and frameworks explicitly targeting vulnerability reduction among the least developed, most hazard-prone, or poorest regions.
Detailed elaboration of how to foster what are likely to be context-specific means of engaging local communities may be an unrealistic expectation for a negotiated, international framework, but the seemingly backward trajectory of the discourse surrounding participation is noteworthy. Given the concern expressed for failures to understand local context and implement HFA at the local scale, the observed shift in language from the Yokohama Strategy to SFDRR, as well as a failure to direct future funding and efforts to understanding place-based vulnerability, raises significant concerns regarding the future management of disaster risks.