INTEGRATING DISASTER REDUCTION INTO DEVELOPMENT: OVERCOMING THE BARRIERS

As the human and financial costs of disasters triggered by natural hazards
continues to rise, decade by decade, disasters are increasingly being
recognised as a threat to sustainable development, poverty reduction
initiatives and the achievement of a number of the Millennium Development
Goals. Despite this, many development organisations remain reluctant to
pursue disaster risk reduction as a key objective, or even to protect
their own projects against potential hazards.

Although there are many challenges to mainstreaming natural disaster
reduction into development programming, a new study concludes that some
technical obstacles can be overcome without great difficulty (Charlotte
Benson and John Twigg, ‘Measuring Mitigation’. Methodologies for assessing
natural hazard risks and the net benefits of mitigation – a scoping study
(Geneva: ProVention Consortium) December 2004). The study was carried out
as part of a project by the ProVention Consortium, a global coalition of
governments, international organizations, academic institutions, the
private sector and civil society organizations dedicated to increasing the
safety of vulnerable communities and to reducing the impact of disasters
in developing countries.

The study shows that many of the standard tools used in designing
development projects – such as environmental appraisal, economic
appraisal, vulnerability and social analysis, risk assessment and logframe
analysis – can be used or readily adapted to assess risks from natural
hazards and the potential benefits of mitigation options.  At present,
these often cover risk in the broadest sense (operational, financial,
political, etc.) but usually make little reference to natural hazards.
Consequently, hazards and related vulnerability are rarely considered in
designing and appraising development projects, even in high-risk areas.

Another key finding is that monitoring and evaluation is still relatively
neglected in disaster reduction work. There is also still too much
emphasis on assessment of activities and outputs, rather than impacts.
Failure at the project planning stage to provide baselines and clarify the
structure of a project’s objectives, outcomes, outputs and activities also
handicaps evaluation by making it difficult to identify progress and
causality.

The study concludes by making a number of recommendations to practitioners
and policy makers that will help them to improve their approach to
appraisal and evaluation.

The full report, a shorter synthesis report and a policy brief are
available free of charge from the ProVention Consortium. Electronic copies
can be downloaded from the project’s web page
(www.proventionconsortium.org/projects/methodology_assess.htm); printed
copies are available on request by writing to [log in to unmask]

A new phase of the project is about to begin. This will produce a set of
short guidance notes on specific project and country programme level
appraisal and planning tools, together with a more detailed handbook on
monitoring and evaluating disaster reduction projects. These materials
will become available during 2005-6. Progress updates will be published on
the ProVention Consortium’s website.