Chapter 4 - Disaster Risk Governance: Evolution and Influences

Abstract

Disaster risk reduction (DRR) represents a shift in the paradigm of disaster management from “response and recovery” to “prevention and preparedness.” International organizations have been key players in advancing this agenda. This chapter seeks to explore the challenging nature of contemporary endeavors in disaster risk governance, which are intricately linked to the neoliberal agenda of “hollowing out” state functions. Under this agenda a reduced role for the state has emerged and an opening of the governing arena to a wider multitude of nonstate actors. This chapter discusses three dimensions to the changing distribution of influence and responsibility in disaster risk governance. The first is the “upward” dimension, wherein governments are becoming more accountable to global institutions. Second, the “outward” or mainstreaming the agenda of disaster risk reduction requires sectors to integrate disaster and development into their activities to develop better prevention and preparedness. Third, the “downward” or decentralization of disaster risk governance arguably enables local communities to formulate realistic and implementable prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery plans. In this complex and changing governance landscape of disaster risk reduction, as the neoliberal state is hollowed out and responsibilities are reoriented upward, outward, and downward, the question arises: “who really governs DRR?”