Secretariat of the International Strategy
for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR)
 
Priority Areas to Implement Disaster Risk Reduction
“ Building disaster resilient communities and nations”
Helping to Set a New International Agenda
 
 
Focus
Technical support by
 
Co-sponsor
 
 
 

 

 

Summary Topic 3

From 5 to 11 July
Voluntary partnerships to support implementation, at all levels. Operational criteria and modalities. Links with relevant World Summit on Social Development (WSSD) partnerships and other existing ones.
Download document

(Moderator's note: Please note that while Topic 3 has closed, participants who are interested in contributing further to that discussion can still send in their messages for incorporation into the final summary.)
 

Dear Online Dialogue Participants,

Thank you to everyone who has subscribed and contributed to Topic 3. More than 720 people have now subscribed to the dialogue, and 40 messages relating to Topic 3 had been received at the time of writing this summary.

The contributions so far have been very interesting and useful. They are full of insights into the potential challenges, as well as indicating a wide range of potential solutions. This summary highlights the main issues raised (the contributions can be viewed on the dialogue's website www.unisdr.org/wcdr-dialogue/). Examples of 'good practice' submitted by the participants during the Topic 3 discussion are listed in a separate document.

 

Purpose of Topic 3

The purpose of Topic 3 was to hold a general exchange of views on, and address specific questions relating to, the ‘voluntary partnerships’ mechanism proposed to complement the WCDR implementation machinery (which was discussed in Topic 2). The focus of the discussion was to be on the suggested operational criteria and modalities for this.
The particular questions for discussion were:

  • Are the proposed operational criteria and modalities sufficient to ensure effective partnership? What modalities should be put in place to link the WSSD and WCDR partnerships and enhance their effectiveness?
  • Should the ISDR secretariat foresee additional tasks as facilitator of the partnership mechanism?
  • Please provide information, contacts and lessons from experience of relevant partnerships to enhance the success of the proposed partnership mechanism.

Contributions addressing all levels (national, regional and international) were invited. As with the discussion of the first two topics, participants were encouraged to support their remarks with examples of good practice wherever possible. The discussion time was extended by a few days to allow last-minute contributions, of which there were several.


Summary of discussion

There was no doubt among the contributors to the discussion that voluntary partnerships were valuable, because they could improve co-ordination of efforts and increase the number and range of actors involved in disaster reduction. In general, the participants endorsed the draft criteria and modalities for guiding the operations of voluntary partnership mechanisms as both appropriate and workable; but there was considerable discussion about the nature of partnerships and about what was needed to make them work. Several valuable case study examples were provided.

Many, if not all, of the participants, had experience of involvement in voluntary partnerships of one kind or another. Their contributions were, therefore, strongly rooted in this experience, from which many practical lessons had been learned. One of the most important lessons was that successful partnerships could not be achieved overnight: time and effort were required to secure willing commitment from all the stakeholders involved. This meant taking a strategic approach to partnership-building. Another lesson was that, without the commitment of the main sectors in society – government, business and civil society – to developing common policies towards common goals, the application of resources alone would not be sufficient to solve the disaster problem.

It was recognised that partnerships had to cut across disciplines and sectors, link different levels of operation, and reconcile top-down and bottom-up approaches. The various contributions referred to all kinds of stakeholders as actual or potential partners in voluntary partnerships for disaster reduction. These included: governments at all levels, UN and other international agencies, international and private donors, international, national and local NGOs, grass-roots organisations, the business sector, the media (whose importance was highlighted), the military, trades unions, professional organisations and educational institutions.

Several participants expressed reservations about the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of international organisations, but their potential significance was not in doubt; nor was the need for international co-ordination and support. UN agencies were believed to have a key role to play in bringing about partnerships for disaster mitigation: with UN or government agencies playing a leading role, successful partnerships could be established more quickly. Thanks to the information technology revolution, there was a good opportunity for an agency such as ISDR within the UN system to play the role of ‘catalyst and idea generator’ for disaster reduction approaches in general, and, as part of this, to ensure that knowledge of good practice in partnership-building was collected and shared (as proposed in the WCDR background document). Other suggested roles for ISDR or other UN agencies included: establishing websites (where reference and methodological material could be collected and made available, and through which ideas could be exchanged), creating mechanisms for interaction with the media to share disaster reduction messages, and ensuring that existing disaster reduction material was disseminated right down to grass-roots level.

Operational experience indicated that, whilst it was relatively straightforward to establish information-sharing mechanisms and even to develop standard tools and methodologies, holding meaningful policy dialogue with government was often much harder. This was a crucial issue, since government engagement is very important, especially at levels above the local. Capacity building within the government system was needed to overcome the problem. Weak linkages between legislators and implementing authorities presented an additional problem at government level in some countries.

Partnership activities and mechanisms have costs and it was important to face up to this. Therefore support from donors – of all kinds – was essential. NGO contributors reminded the dialogue about the difficulty in obtaining funding for ongoing, long-term work. Financial and other resources, such as services, had to be made available right down to the local level, through whatever mechanisms were available or adaptable to the purpose. Some civil society contributors noted the risk that, in some places, NGOs might be competing against each other in their field activities and fundraising.

Partnerships with communities were generally agreed to be of fundamental importance. The most vulnerable social groups often demonstrated high levels of solidarity and mutual assistance during crises, but were not given sufficient technical assistance in facing potential emergencies. Although there was little discussion about how effective partnerships could be created and maintained, several examples of successful initiatives were presented. Everyone who wrote on this matter strongly supported community participation in partnerships with other stakeholder types. But this had to be genuine participation – i.e. communities had to have their share of decision-making power. There was a reminder that partnerships were not uniform, monolithic structures but had to be shaped to benefit vulnerable communities, whose circumstances would inevitably vary from one location to another. Partnerships did not necessarily have to bring in new ideas and approaches, but could be designed to support the application and dissemination of time-tested traditional practices and coping mechanisms. There were some pleas for a focus on building up and assisting community organisations.

Whilst it was widely agreed that corporate sector engagement was necessary, it was also felt that the practical challenges in making corporate partnerships lasting are often overlooked. There has been relatively little analysis of this issue. More thinking is needed on how to engage the private sector more in long-term partnerships and on how to convince the sector that it should be more fully engaged. One way might be to show the business benefits of disaster reduction measures.

Financial services such as insurance, credit, disaster reserve funds and social protection funds were identified as important mechanisms for managing risk, creating incentives to reduce risk, and stimulating public-private partnerships. It was recognised that the availability of formal financial services was low in developing countries. However, there was great potential here for bringing new, private sector, partners into the disaster reduction arena.

Many contributors referred to the importance of public education and information work – an issue that arose during earlier discussions in this online dialogue – but there was no discussion about how such action might stimulate partnerships. The emphasis often appeared to be on information dissemination rather than genuine communication (i.e. dialogue between communities and others). More generally, improved information sharing and greater transparency regarding information were perceived to be essential elements in establishing sustainable partnerships. However, an important distinction was also made between ‘partnerships’ (where each partner makes a contribution in return for what they gain) and ‘networks’ (where the emphasis is on sharing information).

The importance of linking disaster reduction partnerships to other sectors and mechanisms – e.g. Local Agenda 21 – was also noted. Disaster reduction had to be located within sustainable development, and this should be an intrinsic element of the follow-up to WCDR, allowing the engagement of as many stakeholders as possible. The importance of linking the post-WCDR disaster reduction programme to the Millennium Development Goals and other international development frameworks was once again highlighted.

Finally, one participant noted perceptively that disasters can undermine relationships between stakeholders, notably where external intervention or political factors are involved. Protecting voluntary partnerships against this threat is clearly vital to ensuring their sustainability. More positively, there were examples from Yemen and India of external agencies that had come to a disaster-affected area to give humanitarian assistance but then stayed to become involved in long-term reconstruction and development.

(John Twigg, moderator, 20/7/04)


 
'Good practice' examples
Download document
 

Participants’ examples of ‘good practice’ or lessons for others to learn from are listed here. In some cases, further details can be found in the relevant contribution (the name of the contributor and date are given in brackets), and references are given where these were supplied. Others, though, are short or anecdotal references.

Note: This is a list of the examples provided by participants. It has not been selected or validated by the dialogue’s moderator or ISDR.

National and local levels:

  • The Natural Disaster Mitigation Partnership (NDM-Partnership) in Vietnam involving the Government, donor countries and international agencies (http://www.undp.org.vn/ndm-partnership) (R Kuberan 6/7/04).
  • The work of the Disaster Management Training Centre in Tanzania, which runs courses for government, NGOs and the private sector (Mlenge Mgendi 8/7/04).
  • The local-level partnership-building work of the NGO Communidad in El Salvador and other Latin American countries, involving local authorities, citizens and professionals (Massimo de Franchi 11/7/04).
  • The Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority in India, an organisation involving a variety of stakeholders, which has undertaken several activities to reduce disaster risk since 2001 (Meena Bilgi 11/7/04).
  • Coastal Area Disaster Mitigation Efforts (CADME), a network of 20 voluntary organisations in coastal Andhra Pradesh, India, which is facilitating village-level disaster preparedness activities (Meda Gurudutt Prasad 13/7/04).
  • The spontaneous involvement of JP Industries, a private construction company, in clearing landslide debris in the Indian Himalaya, and helping the local administration to evacuate people (Anshu Sharma 13/7/04).
  • The Crustal Stress Community Awareness Network in the Philippines, which draws together local government, the community and NGOs in gathering scientific data and observing environmental changes for earthquake forecasting (www.undp.org.ph/frontliner/archive/3-2003/cscanlong.htm) (Jean Chu 13/7/04).
  • CIIFEN (The International Centre for Research on El Niño), in Guayaquil Ecuador, which applies scientific research and ocean atmosphere modeling to early warnings and risk scenarios, disseminating these to governments, decision makers, private and public sectors and ordinary people (Rodney Martínez 15/7/04).
  • Community emergency response teams in the USA, supported and trained by emergency management authorities to act in support or independently of official agencies during crises (Christopher Effgen 15/7/04).
  • Development and testing of community-based flood management strategies in Bangladesh (Ahsan Uddin Ahmed 19/7/04).
  • Creation of self-governing community organisations for disaster response and mitigation in Nepal (Man Thapa 19/7/04).
  • Involvement of San Carlos University in Guatemala in training courses for other organisations and community-level risk management (Omar Flores Beltetón 19/7/04).


Regional level:

  • Regional networks in South Asia (Duryog Nivaran) and Latin America (La Red), which have raised the profile of disaster mitigation, provided channels for publishing research, and enabled local organisations to work together on projects (Rachel Berger 15/7/04).


International level:

(John Twigg, moderator, 20/7/04)