Regional Disaster Risk Management

Abstract

Regional cooperation on DRM is now a global phenomenon. From the isolated islands in the South Pacific to landlocked countries in central Asia, regional DRM is in vogue. This is a fairly recent phenomenon that has only become evident in the last two to three decades. Before the 1970s, regional organizations did not prioritize, and in some cases did not even consider, DRM to be a policy space under its jurisdiction. Yet, from the mid-1970s, regional organizations such as the EU, ASEAN, LAS, OAU and the PIF either presented declarations of intent or acknowledged the importance of regional cooperation on natural disasters. While these declarations were rarely followed by any precise agreements or any substantial cooperation that exceeded information sharing, it did mark a period of nascent regional DRM cooperation.1 This period was followed by a significant and global increase in cooperation. From the late 1990s, regional organizations produced more sophisticated agreements on DRM. The EU created legal competencies in the area of civil protection in 1997, NATO created a Euro-Atlantic Disaster Coordination Centre in 1998, and SADC and ASEAN began working in earnest on frameworks for DRM cooperation that were established between 2001 and 2005, respectively. During this short period, from 2000–2006, at least 16 regional organizations began or updated cooperation in DRM.