john –
I was happy to read of your initiative on this CBDRM indicator project, not only because it needs to be done but because, based upon all that i have seen and read of your work both here on the listserv and elsewhere in the literature, I have great confidence that you will assemble a great team to do it…
unfortunately, I fear that we’re not all in agreement regarding what “it” is…and, thus, the cart seems before the horse – how can we agree on indicators of CBDRM if we can’t yet agree on what the focus of CBDRM should be? your message stated that the desired responses "could include
conceptual frameworks or hypothetical indicators, case studies, examples of community-level (and community-based) DRR evaluations, names and addresses of expert informants – and anything else that you think might be relevant.", so i hope that the following fits the bill...
Over the past 10 years or so of talk of CBDRM, I’ve seen many many different foci of what we’re doing…but no real agreement yet either theoretically or practically.
So that we might be on the same page, my own frame of thought is based on thinking of any community disaster as an exogenous or endogenous (depending on the level of pre-event CBDRM [and its concomitant level of "appropriate" risk reduction]) shock to a pre-existing equilibrium state of resources (including institutions) in a community. While all communities are constantly evolving and, thus, in my parlance, adjusting to smaller shocks, this relative equilibrium is not realized until a large event reveals the pre-event “relative steady state”.
The key to either pre-event CBDRM or post-event CBDRM would be to align institutions so as to best appreciate what can be done under the new paradigm in a new desired state (incorporating both former institutions and new institutions…or, if one prefers, drivers and resistance factors per the facilitation tool of force-field analysis) based on what can be done to minimize risk and maximize rewards of the community…this would be what integrated truly means (by not just focusing on resilience but also potential development towards happiness).
Our DRM (and often termed, unwisely in my opinion, DRR) literature often seems to neglect that the point of CBDRM would be a combination of not only potential community resilience [vulnerability reduction & capacity building] through risk minimization but also, for lack of a better phrase, potential community happiness through reward maximization; through participatory CBDRM processes of reducing risk AND increasing reward, the community doesn’t just decrease the potential proportion of the pie that gets whacked with shocks but increases the size of the pie overall in a manner that increases potential happiness without reducing resilience (with the pie not necessarily being material abundance [that often exacerbates vulnerability] but, rather, options for life happiness)
If CBDRM is to take place post-event (which is what most of us end up doing, since that’s when the money from outside and interest from inside are there), then the emphasis is certainly NOT recovery, but, rather, post-shock adjustments to a new equilibrium in which the community decides which institutions are still operable with modification and which need overhauls to best enable the “foreigners to get out” (aka [per my parlance], self-provision of resources and services within the community) – with the key being the perceptions of the members of the community regarding their own vulnerabilities, capacities, and potential happiness drivers
I think that marv birnbaum, et al (per the new book published by them at the World Association of Disaster and Emergency Medicine) are really heading in the right direction with their longitudinal and transsectional basic societal function restoration – but, per a recent paper of mine (see attached: “Sustainable Livelihood Considerations for Disaster Risk Management: Implications for Implementation of the Government of Indonesia Tsunami Recovery Plan”, Disaster Prevention and Management, 15:1, 2006) and my recent work with health care institution revitalization, I would prefer to focus on processes of risk perception reduction along the lines of Cernea’s impoverishment risk reduction model…as neither function restoration nor institution rebuilding matters a hoot if affected people don’t perceive that these functions and institutions will somehow optimize their well-being
I also think that we need to be focusing on communities determining their process feedback thresholds according to the earlier referenced paper – if the key to community revitalization is livelihoods that enable self-provision of services and resources, then we must get indicators to tell us which levels of “home restoration” risk reduction processes, “psychosocial restoration” risk reduction processes, and “social payments and services restoration” risk reduction processes enable different groups of vulnerable people to resume activities that allow self-provision
perhaps this is not along the lines of the contributions that you were seeking, but I literally found myself losing sleep thinking of people submitting indicators to evaluate that which is not yet jointly defined and agreed. so I’m hopeful that you appreciate these post-pillow-tossing-and-turning words (asking for any clarification of anything above that may be stuck in my own jargon) and, more importantly, that we can also make efforts towards providing a forum at which we can all come to agreement such that at the theoretical and practical level, we can all be working towards participatory community determination of resource/instution alignment as part of CBDRM community vitalization and/or revitalization processes…and then talk about indicators towards these processes.
And, of course (goes without saying?), I very much respect all that you have done and continue to do – and would love to help in any way that you deem fit towards your current efforts towards making at least a part of this a reality.
hopefully and gratefully,
bob alexander
rural livelihood risk management consultant
NB: I’ve sent this to you exclusively because it was your request on the listserv – but, if you think that anyone else will find any or all of these thoughts useful in any way, feel free to forward at will
----- Original Message -----
From: John Twigg <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Monday, November 27, 2006 8:28 pm
Subject: Indicators of community-level disaster risk reduction
To: [log in to unmask]
> I am leading a small team of researchers who have been
> commissioned by a
> group of international NGOs to develop a set of indicators that
> show both
> the level of achievement and the scale of impact of DRR activities
> at the
> community level. This will complement work being done within the
> UN
> system to look at higher-level DRR indicators within the Hyogo
> Framework
> of Action.
>
> We would be grateful for any information you may have on this
> subject and
> any experiences you wish to share. This information could include
> conceptual frameworks or hypothetical indicators, case studies,
> examples
> of community-level (and community-based) DRR evaluations, names
> and
> addresses of expert informants – and anything else that you think
> might be
> relevant.
>
> All contributions will be acknowledged. The project will create a
> web page
> in the near future (www.benfieldhrc.org/disaster_studies) where
> interim
> and final outputs will be posted.
>
> John Twigg, Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre
> ([log in to unmask]). Thank
> you in advance for your help.
>
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