Risk reduction in Sendai

While I don’t know the official figures, well over 5000 people descended on Sendai, Japan, for the Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in mid March. I was part of a large Australian contingent that was involved in a variety of ways, including our post-2015 negotiation team that was heavily involved in the negotiations prior to the conference. I was involved in two official capacities, presenting at a UN Integrated Research on Disaster Risk public forum and in a working session on one of the five Hyogo Framework Priorities for Action.

In the IRDR presentation, Vicki Johnson (now, Dr Vicki Johnson after recently finishing a very fine PhD) and I presented on child-centred disaster risk reduction (CC-DRR). I presented live, while Vicki joined us via video to discuss on progress in the area. Our main thrust was on challenges, including findings from Vicki’s PhD (published in 2014) that showed that school drills done according to standard operating procedures may not reduce risk in the way envisaged. In fact, our research showed that some school drill procedures, without accompanying education, may actually enhance risk. 

For the working session, it was intended to be the conference’s review of one of the Hyogo Framework Priorities for Action, Priority for Action 3: Using knowledge, innovation and education to build a culture of safety and resilience at all levels. I was invited by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation to be the keynote speaker for this session and used my time to review both progress and main challenges. One main challenge is a lack of research, including research on effectiveness of education and knowledge-based initiatives. Also lacking is research on implementation, including research to support scaled and sustainable implementation of effective initiatives. This challenge also includes a lack of policy-practice-research partnerships designed to promote policy infusion and large scale implementation of effective DRR knowledge and education initiatives.  

A lack of research and partnerships appears to have culminated in a ‘project mentality’ that dominates many knowledge and education initiatives. With no research being done on an initiative, and no partnerships established to carry forward momentum, DRR knowledge and education projects tended to be time limited, with no plans in place for either scaling or sustainability.

A main focus in our Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC-funded CC-DRR project is on scaled and sustainable implementation, conducting research while also forming partnerships with those in policy and practice to help move beyond a project mentality, to one that spells out longer-term roadmaps for effective initiatives. We want to reach more children, families and communities.