Mainstreaming Early Warning Systems in Development and Planning Processes: Multilevel Implementation of Sendai Framework in Indus and Sahel

Asim Zia,Courtney Hammond Wagner

doi:10.1007/s13753-015-0048-3

Abstract

The third UN World Congress on Disaster Risk Reduction, held in Sendai, Japan in March 2015, agreed on a new framework to guide disaster risk reduction policy and practice for the next 15 years. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 (SFDRR) leaves important implementation issues unspecified and potentially creates both problems and opportunities for complex, multilevel governance systems in coping with hazards and disastrous events. Early warning systems (EWS), if built into the mainstream of planning for development and disaster relief and recovery, could present a significant opportunity to realize many SFDRR goals. We explore the complexities of using hydrometeorological EWS to prepare for drought and flood disasters in the densely populated communities of Pakistan’s Indus River Basin in contrast to the African Sahel’s less densely settled grasslands. Multilevel governance systems are often dominated by a top-down, technocentric, centralized management bias and have great difficulty responding to the needs of peripheral and vulnerable populations. People-centered, bottom-up approaches that incorporate disaggregated communities with local knowledge into a balanced, multilevel disaster risk management and governance structure have a dramatically better chance of realizing the SFDRR goals for disaster risk reduction.

Highlights

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 (SFDRR) (UNISDR 2015), recently negotiated in the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) conference in Sendai, Japan, replaces the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015 (HFA) (UNISDR 2005) as a guiding policy document to steer disaster risk governance
We explore the complexities of using hydrometeorological Early warning systems (EWS) to prepare for drought and flood disasters in the densely populated communities of Pakistan’s Indus River Basin in contrast to the African Sahel’s less densely settled grasslands
Despite the many disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategies that could be assessed for SFDRR implementation, this study focuses on an emerging opportunity that pertains to the mainstreaming of hydrometeorological early warning systems (EWS) as a DRR strategy in development and land-use planning processes across multiple levels of governments

Summary

Introduction

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 (SFDRR) (UNISDR 2015), recently negotiated in the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) conference in Sendai, Japan, replaces the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015 (HFA) (UNISDR 2005) as a guiding policy document to steer disaster risk governance. Though replete with ‘‘dos’’ and ‘‘don’ts,’’ the SFDRR lacks any specific guidance on the means of implementation of proposed DRR strategies, in particular the integration of EWS with development and planning processes across multiple scales of governance from local to regional, national, and international administrative units Both Priority 2 and 3 contain general framework guidelines that could be used to infer different risk governance and mainstreaming scenarios in specific country-wide or continent-wide contexts. The Sendai Framework, compared with HFA, emphasizes a ‘‘people-centered,’’ ‘‘bottom-up’’ shift in broad risk governance, the underlying funding and institutional mechanisms (Priority 3 in SFDRR) appear to assume a technocentric, top-down implementation of DRR strategies This focus is true in the generation and allocation of financial and technical resources for investments in developing EWS and mainstreaming DRR in development.

SFDRR and DRR

Indus Basin

Findings

Sahel Region