DRECB-SEA project activities in Manila a great success

From November 23th-25th 2016, a consortium of researchers from 5 countries, led by the University of Newcastle and funded by the Australia-ASEAN Council, collaborated to host a series of activities in Manila. The events coincided with the 70th anniversary celebration of diplomatic relations between Australia and the Philippines and allowed the AAC board and Australian Embassy to participate in project activities.

Over 200 participants attended a much anticipated Symposium, entitled "Building Resilience through Synergies in Education" on the 23rd, hosted by the University of Philippines, School of Urban and Regional Planning. AAC board member Professor Alice Woodhead was among the keynote speakers on a day that featured three expert discussion panels; on Disaster Education; Disaster Governance; and Disaster Research and Innovation.

DRECB Manila Symposium - Highlights from Jason von Meding on Vimeo.

The DRECB team launched its new website and the DRR curriculum mapping tool that is under development. There were lively debates between panelists and public participants with respect to key concern in DRR education, research and governance.

In addition to the Symposium event, the DRECB team held a DRR curriculum mapping workshop drawing 30 representatives of different stakeholder groups on the 24th November. Participants worked in groups including practitioners, educators and community actors to analyse and reflect on the Sendai Framework mapping that the project has undertaken. The results of these workshops will be forthcoming in 2017.

The project team wrapped up the week's activities with a visit to Valenzuela City on the 25th, meeting with community leaders, disaster risk reduction practitioners and emergency responders. Special thanks to the UP-SURP organising team and in particular Professor Mario Delos Reyes and Dr Mark Morales for their leadership in making all of these events possible.

RES-SIM: The challenges of addressing vulnerability in scenario design

Attending the Sendai conference in March this year I was struck by the unprecedented support and inclusion for vulnerable groups, and in particular for those with a disability. There were several public forums organised at the event, aimed at drawing attention to the issue of disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction. You could argue that this campaign for recognition was successful, in that the Sendai Framework prominently promotes the needs of the oft forgotten in a disaster risk reduction (DRR) context.

"Empowering women and persons with disabilities to publicly lead and promote gender equitable and universally accessible response, recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction approaches is key" - Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2013, p. 20

 

This week the release of the Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2015 by ESCAP reminds us that disability-inclusive DRR needs to be a central goal, since the outcomes for this particularly vulnerable group can be so dire. It is well documented that vulnerable groups such as the poor, women, children, the elderly, and those with disabilities suffer worse outcomes in disasters. ESCAPs own figures show that for people with a disability, the mortality rates during disasters are two to four times higher than that of those without disabilities.

So we can easily acknowledge the importance of embedding disability-inclusive thinking into all of our DRR endeavours. The challenge then becomes what does this really look like on the ground. In particular, how can we as researchers incorporate this thinking into the design of RES-SIM? If we rely on current practitioners and educators to inform the design of our system, how can we ensure that this important goal is also in their consciousness? Can we afford to wait for these important goals to become mainstream and rely on public groundswell? I think that perhaps instead we need to 'lead from the top' and ensure that the voices of the vulnerable are loudly ringing in our ears when we make decisions related to DRR. Whether that be in a local community-based project, or globally when deciding on future policy frameworks.

The impact of disasters on the marginalised, impoverished and disadvantaged

This is a post I wrote on my way to Sendai, first published by UNISDR here....

-------------------------------

Thousands of participants are now descending on Sendai for the 3rd World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR), hosted by the Japanese Government, this weekend. At the conference, stakeholders will formalise the post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction and hundreds of events and sessions will present a vision for the world in which less people are vulnerable to the negative impacts of hazards.

As we consider the achievements of the past decade under the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA), we must avoid being sucked into a technocratic mindset. Undoubtedly, the knowledge-base in many disciplines has exploded with scholarly DRR material. Countless disaster-related problems have been solved through the dedication of government, humanitarian, community and private sector actors. Many of the solutions have been born of human intellect, and this is great.

However, as we shape the DRR vision for the next ten years, let us not forget that global economic, social and political systems assign power, wealth and resources to the few at the expense of the many. In 2014, Oxfam reported that 85 richest people in the world now have equal wealth to the poorest half of humanity. In this context, our attempts to reduce disaster risk and build resilient societies (at least the human dimension) are at best fanciful, if growing global inequality is ignored.

So, should we become cynical and view international governmental platforms, meetings and negotiations as disingenuous grandstanding sessions, allowing participants to be seen to ‘do something’ about disaster risk, but ultimately serving the interests of the powerful?

Dr. James Gilligan refers to the estimated 10 million deaths per year that occur due to poverty as, “the equivalent of an ongoing, unending, in fact accelerating, thermonuclear war, or genocide, perpetuated on the weak and poor every year of every decade, throughout the world.”

Those most vulnerable to disaster impacts are those marginalised, impoverished and disadvantaged. A global economic system addicted to growth at all costs does not factor in human misery. People become mere statistics. Beings with complex needs, abilities and interests become ‘resources’ to be used and abused. Why is there so little opposition to what Joseph Conrad called “the merry dance of death and trade.“

At WCDRR, there will be time to recognise amazing achievements to date. There will be time to spread contagious, visionary thinking, as part of a post-2015 agenda. I look forward to engaging with individuals of diverse background, opinion and worldview.

I hope that we will all take the time to consider how our ‘best laid schemes’ for DRR can indeed succeed in the long term against a pervasive backdrop of inequality, violence, poverty and injustice. How can we best address not only the symptoms, but the cause?

---------------------------------

At some point I intend to write in detail about my frustration with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and my first experience of a UN conference. Ben Wisner called it 'naked national elite economic power at work' in an email worth reading. It's hard to disagree with his assertion that 'only popular demands and protests will shift national governments.'