Disaster Preparedness for Effective Response

Disaster Preparedness for Effective Response : Guidance and Indicator Package for Implementing Priority Five of the Hyogo Framework

Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the resilience of nations and communities to disasters

Disaster Preparedness: Saving lives and livelihoods

Over the past two decades, the number of recorded disasters has doubled from approximately 200 to over 400 per year. Nine out of every ten of these disasters have been climate related. Current projections regarding climate change suggest this trend is set to continue and that weather related hazard events will become more frequent andmore volatile.

Patterns of drought and desertification are also intensifying. In addition, vulnerability is also growing in many countries. Increasing urbanisation, including growing concentrations of people in unplanned and unsafe urban settlements and exposed coastal areas, poverty, HIV prevalence, and inadequate attention to changing risk patterns, are placing more and more people in disaster-prone locations.

Never before has the challenge “to substantially reduce the impact of disasters and to make risk reduction an essential component of development policies and programmes” spelled out in the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015 (HFA) being more urgent or more compelling.

In 2005, shortly after the Asian Tsunami, over 168 governments pledged to implement the Hyogo Framework’s three strategic goals: to integrate disaster risk reduction into sustainable development policies and planning, to develop and strengthen institutions, mechanisms and capacities to build resilience to hazards and to systematically incorporate risk reduction approaches into the implementation of emergency preparedness, response and recovery programmes.

To achieve these goals, the HFA outlined five specific Priorities for Action:

1. Making disaster risk reduction a priority

2. Improving risk information and early warning

3. Building a culture of safety and resilience

4. Reducing the risks in key sectors

5. Strengthening preparedness for response

The Framework also stressed that disaster risk reduction is not just an issue to be addressed by humanitarians, scientists or environmentalists, but is also critical to sustainable social and economic development processes.

Disasters undermine development achievements, impoverishing people and nations. In the absence of concerned efforts to address root causes, disasters represent an increasingly serious obstacle to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

In Priority Five; strengthening preparedness for response at all levels, the HFA highlighted the essential role that disaster preparedness can play in saving lives and livelihoods particularly when integrated into an overall disaster risk reduction approach.

Strengthened preparedness for hazard events is mainly concerned with two objectives: increasing capacity to predict, monitor and be prepared to reduce damage or address potential threats and strengthening preparedness to respond in an emergency and to assist those who have been adversely affected.

Structure of the Document and Use of this Indicator and Guidance Tool

This Guidance and Indicator Tool is designed to provide guidance on how to meet the challenge of being prepared to respond as set out in Priority Five of the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA). This tool aims primarily to assist governments, local authorities, and other stakeholders concerned with natural hazards in potentially vulnerable settings.

It is designed to complement and expand upon the disaster preparedness and response components of the ISDR guidelines; Words Into Action: A Guide for Implementing the Hyogo Framework (2007); and the Indicators of Progress: Guidance on Measuring the Reduction of Disaster Risks and the Implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action (2008).

The guidance also draws upon and complements the work of John Twigg and the DFID Disaster Risk Reduction Interagency Coordination group on the ‘Characteristics of a Disaster-resilient

Community’ (2007).

This document is primarily geared towards those who are at the beginning of the process of developing a disaster preparedness capability.

Given that many governments and others have gained a wide range of experience in

developing disaster preparedness systems in a risk reduction framework, it is expected that stakeholders will adapt the tool to their particular context as appropriate.

This guidance begins by situating disaster preparedness within a holistic risk reduction framework. It goes on to provide a basic overview of the institutional and legislative frameworks that must be in place to support disaster preparedness. It then outlines key steps essential for developing a national disaster preparedness capability and highlights the critical role that contingency planning and capacity analysis can play in strengthening preparedness.

The latter sections underline essential elements for an effective response, including the establishment and maintenance of early warning systems, stand-by capacities and effective funding mechanisms.

It also stresses the need for these processes to integrate early-recovery analysis and planning.

Each section includes a suggested outcome and a set of indicators to help measure levels of preparedness and progress.

The indicators take various forms, measuring, for example, outputs and processes. Ideally, indicators collected during the preparedness phase can be used as a baseline for measuring change over time and across different contexts. At a minimum they should serve as a checklist for ensuring that preparedness activities are being undertaken in a participatory and comprehensive manner. (See Annex 1 for more information on indicators.)

The number of indicators has been kept to a minimum and it is expected that users of the guidance package may track supplementary indicators and use additional monitoring tools based on their particular contexts.

A list of additional resources and websites that can support the development of a preparedness capability is also provided in Annex 3.

Source : United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction www.isdr.org.

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