Government-communities Collaboration in Disaster Management Activity: Investigation in the Current Flood Disaster Management Policy in Thailand

Abstract

The importance of collaboration in disaster management activity has been mentioned as a key point of professionalism in disaster management activities since there appears to be limitation in a single authority and they can no longer handle it. Thus, a set of concepts of disaster management, such as professional management, command, control and collaboration, and Incident Command Systems (ICS) becomes more debatable. Government's responsibility as first-hand respondent in disaster management has underpinned the close relationship between local government and communities which also affect the effectiveness in disaster response. However, the difficulty in collaboration always occurs, such as different perceptions, willingness, political will and expectation that undermine the effort of collaborative disaster management. Based on the concept of professionalism in disaster management, this research argued that it had the level of professionalism in disaster management. The aim of this research was to investigate the current flood disaster policies in Thailand after 2011. There were two objectives as follows: (1) to find the linkage and connectivity of flood disaster management policy in different levels of government (National level, provincial level and municipality level) based on the concept of professionalism in disaster management, and (2) to analyze the level of involvement of citizen toward the current flood disaster management policy. This research was composed using literature review in the current flood management policy, provincial development guideline, municipality development plan and some projects implemented or proposed to be carried out in local communities by comparing with concept of disaster management and participation theory.