Transparency and consultation are the key

In analyzing decision-support techniques for disaster-risk management measures, Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) Program researchers looked at objectives like information, available resources, and the perceptions and needs of stakeholders as a basis for policy decision support. 

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Selecting the effective and acceptable disaster risk management (DRM) measures is critical, especially for low- and middle-income countries, which continue to suffer disproportionately higher economic and human losses from disasters.

While practitioners and policymakers are greatly interested in this issue, there is a lack of empirical evidence and methodological guidance regarding techniques to support the most effective policy measures.

The traditional focus has been economic efficiency-based techniques, as operationalized by cost-benefit analysis. However, based on detailed on-the-ground analysis of flood and drought-risk reduction measures in cooperation with many colleagues in India and Pakistan, RPV staff are questioning the focus on cost-benefit analysis and looking for a new way forward [1].   

There are numerous complexities involved in estimating the costs and the benefits of disaster risk management, especially with respect to the effects of climate change and also in the use of cost-benefit analysis as a decision support tool.  

RPV's analysis demonstrates that in choosing sound risk management approaches, a successful outcome is strongly related to process. Specific objectives like information, available resources, and the perceptions and needs of stakeholders also need to be considered as transparently as possible. Moreover, intervention design and uncertainties should be qualified through dialog, indicating that process is as important as numerical results.

With the emphasis shifting from infrastructure-based options (hard resilience) to preparedness and systemic interventions (soft resilience), decision-supporting tools such as multicriteria analysis and robust decision-making approaches deserve more attention than the traditional economic efficiency-based criteria alone. 

RPV was invited to hold a press conference at the 2013 General Assembly of European Geosciences Union, where staff presented how IIASA risk research is helping to identify which advanced actions pay off, and how countries and local governments can make smart investment decisions that lead to fewer deaths and less destruction from natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, landslides, and tsunamis.

References

[1] Kull D, Mechler R, Hochrainer-Stigler S (2013) Probabilistic cost-benefit analysis of disaster risk management in a development context. Disasters, 37(3):374-400 (July 2013) (Published online 2 April 2013). More



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Last edited: 22 May 2014

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Reinhard Mechler

Research Group Leader and Senior Research Scholar Systemic Risk and Resilience Research Group - Advancing Systems Analysis Program

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