Short Course on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)
Mayette October 3rd, 2008
Last week (September 22-26) 5 people from CERD, me included, attended a short course on DRR sponsored by Christian Aid, one of our donor partners. Perhaps the very basic but most important learning we got from this course are the definitions of disaster, risk, hazard, vulnerabilities and capacities:
Disaster: what occurs when the impact of a hazard on a section society (causing death, injury, loss of property or economic lossess) overwhelms that society’s ability to cope. There are requirements for an event to be considered disaster. According to the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, at least one of the following should be present: 10 or more people killed, 100 reported affeced, there is a call for international assistance and/or a declaration of a state of emergency.
Hazard: a potentially damaging physical event, phenomenon, and/or human activity which may cause loss of life or injury, property damage, social and economic disruption and environmental degradation. It can be natural, human-induced or environmental.
Risk: the likelihood of a specific hazard occuring and its probable consequence for people and property. It has the formula:
Disaster Risk = Hazard x Vulnerability
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Capacity
Vulnerability on the other hand is the extent to which a person, group or socio-economic structure is likely to be affected by a hazard (related to their capacity to anticipate it, cope with it, resist it and recover from its impact).
Given these concepts and frameworks we learned from the course it is indeed important to incorporate DRR work in the coastal communities. They are particularly vulnerable to hazards both from land (landslides, mudflows) and from sea (rising sea level, tsunamis) but their poverty and lack of awareness as well as lack of government support makes them highly vulnerable. Going back to the abovementioned formula if we reduce the communities’ vulnerability and increase their capacity to cope and face hazards then the risks from disaster can be reduced.
So at the end of the course CERD committed to undertake activities aimed at increasing staff and community’s awareness on DRR through the conduct of orientation sessions; review of strategic plan and identify possible areas for DRR intervention; review the Gender-responsive Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) manual to include identifying vulnerabilities and capacities of communities (on disasters); and program development on DRR for each program areas (Northern Samar, Western Samar and Surigao del Sur).
- Fisheries and Environment
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