Report on the UNCRD International Workshop Programme
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Report on the UNCRD International Workshop Programme “Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience Building of Urban Communities” 10-14 of December 2012, Aichi, Mie, and Miyagi, Japan Dr Graham Tipple, facilitator Graham Tipple and Associates, North Shields, UK January 2013 1 Contents Introduction............................................................................................................................3 Background........................................................................................................................3 Objectives ..........................................................................................................................4 Matters dealt with and lessons learned ..................................................................................5 Uncontrolled rapid urban expansion leading to disasters ..................................................5 Construction as a mitigation measure................................................................................5 Building Regulations and physical resilience....................................................................6 Community involvement in DRR ......................................................................................6 Policies...............................................................................................................................7 Resettlement.......................................................................................................................8 Finance and Insurance........................................................................................................9 Disaster preparedness and mitigation: (structural and non-structural measures) ............10 Appendix 1: Report of the Proceedings of the workshop....................................................13 Opening Session...............................................................................................................13 Experience from Japan.....................................................................................................13 Introduction to urban and housing issues in disasters......................................................14 National experiences I......................................................................................................16 International issues...........................................................................................................17 National experiences II ....................................................................................................18 Field Visits.......................................................................................................................25 Appendix 2: Workshop Programme ........................................................................................28 2 International Workshop on Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience Building in Urban Communities, Aichi, Mie, and Miyagi, Japan, 10-14 December, 2012 Graham Tipple, facilitator Introduction Background The increasing occurrence of disasters such as typhoons, floods, landslides, mudslides, droughts, earthquake and tsunamis over recent years reminds us again and again how natural and human-induced-hazards and disasters can pose a major challenge to sustainable development through the profound social, economic and environmental consequences they can have for countries, regions, cities and communities around the world. Disasters hit industrialized and developing countries indiscriminately. While they can cause greater absolute economic losses in developed countries, disasters can have far worse consequences in developing countries, the latter having fewer resources and human and institutional capacities to resist, absorb, accommodate to and recover from the effects of such events. In addition, major urban population concentrations and growth are occurring in the most hazard- prone regions, especially close to sea level and in South and South-East Asia. Since the establishment of its Disaster Management Planning Programme in 1985, disaster management planning has been one of the United Nations Centre for Regional Development - UNCRD’s main thematic areas of work to support efforts towards achieving sustainable regional development through research, capacity building activities and partnerships with national and local governments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), academia and communities in developing countries for disaster risk reduction, enhancing communities’ resilience and reducing their vulnerability to natural and human-induced hazards and disasters. The International Workshop on Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience Building in Urban Communities organized by the UNCRD Disaster Management Planning Unit brought together ten national experts from Africa, Asia and Latin America in Nagoya and Sendai, Japan from the 10 to 15 December 2012. During this five-day workshop, and with the support of two international experts who served as facilitator and resource person respectively, they came to learn and share their knowledge and experience through lectures, presentations, group discussions and field visits. The field visits were unusually comprehensive and memorable, at least in the facilitator’s experience. Japan has such severe and frequent disaster events that its infrastructure is very highly developed, especially in comparison with some of the countries represented by the national experts. Being taken to areas where centuries of effort have been devoted to flood control, and then to the site of the catastrophic Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, provided memorable lessons in human ingenuity and resilience in the face of natural forces. 3 Objectives The overall objective of the workshop was to facilitate the establishment of an international network of professionals, experts and representatives from governments, NGOs and CBOs of developing countries, working at national and sub-national (city/village/community) levels in disaster risk and vulnerability reduction and enhancing the resilience of poor communities of developing countries. Beyond providing an arena for discussing best practices and identifying practical solutions to particular critical DRR issues, the workshop aimed at initiating long term cooperation between the participants where, with the support of UNCRD, joint efforts would focus on developing and integrating into national and sub-national policies the most appropriate pro-poor gender-sensitive strategies and plans for disaster risk and vulnerability reduction and resilience building among poor communities living in peri-urban and urban areas of their respective countries. The specific objectives of the workshop were: • To share and discuss a variety of experiences of and approaches, identify best practices, and build a common understanding of disaster issues and management in human settlements of developing countries; • To provide training on disaster risk and vulnerability reduction and resilience building of communities against the impacts of natural and human-induced hazards and disasters as a means to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development; • To provide training on disaster-proof building and retrofitting and building techniques and systems; • To present and discuss the new UNCRD Disaster Management Planning Programme; • To share and learn from disaster management expertise and practice in Japan — including the on-going experience of the reconstruction efforts after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami— at national, city, community and research institutions levels, • To widen UNCRD’s global network for disaster risk reduction by developing new partnerships with governments, NGOs, CBOs, practitioners and academic and research institutions dealing with disaster issues (including the International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS), Tohoku University); It represented a contribution towards increasing attention on disaster management planning in the focus of the United Nations Centre for Regional Development (UNCRD) on Sustainable Environmental, Economic and Social Development. The workshop was an opportunity to share experiences and priorities from a range of countries and UNCRD’s arrangements were very effective. Most impressive of all, however, were the site visits to major disaster areas in Japan at which delegates could compare notes of how their countries could handle such issues. The details of the workshop are reported in appendices below but a brief analysis of the matters dealt with and lessons learned follows. 4 Matters dealt with and lessons learned1 Disasters addressed by the participants included sudden events, such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, landslides, fires, hurricanes and cyclones/tornados, and also slow-onset disasters, caused by uncontrolled rapid urban expansion, desertification, major shifts in economic activity,2 and the rise in sea-level owing to global warming. Where disasters hit urban populations, the potential death-toll can be very high. The delegate from Bangladesh stated that a major earthquake hitting Dhaka could cause 300,000 deaths. Uncontrolled rapid urban expansion leading to disasters Participants from Papua New Guinea and Kenya spoke of uncontrolled and rapid urbanisation as the cause of disasters through the prevalence of very poor living conditions and their growth over many years. Rapid urbanization is taking place at a time when not only are central government resources overstretched