Bangladesh Case Study
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Final Report Democratic Local Governance Capacity and Natural Disasters – Building Community Resilience: Bangladesh Case Study Salahuddin M Aminuzzaman Professor of Public Administration University of Dhaka, Bangladesh [email protected] This study is sponsored by Center for Cultural and Technical Interchange Between East and West Inc Democratic Local Governance Capacity and Natural Disasters – Building Community Resilience: BANGLADESH CASE STUDY This study is sponsored by Center for Cultural and Technical Interchange Between East and West Inc, Hawaii USA August 2014 Cover photo used from www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/06/cyclone_aila.html downloaded on Aug 16 2014. Some Other pictures of the report are also drawn from various web sources. 2 Democratic Local Governance Capacity and Natural Disasters – Building Community Resilience: BANGLADESH CASE STUDY Contents 1. Introduction and Context ........................................................................................................ 4 2. Nature and Types of Natural Disaster in Bangladesh ............................................................... 9 3. Disaster Management and Governance: Conceptual Overview ............................................ 24 4. National Policy and Regulatory framework Disaster Management ...................................... 28 5. National Policy and Regulatory and institutional framework of Disaster Management in Bangladesh 43 6. Role of Local Government in Disaster Management .......................................................... 62 7. Disaster Management at Local Level – Role and Experiences of NGOs and Civil Society Organizations ........................................................................................................................ 94 8. Disaster Management at the Grassroots level of Government – Case Studies of Three Union Parishads in Disaster-prone Arias ............................................................................................ 101 9. Lessons Learned and Policy Implications .......................................................................... 129 Annex 1: Schematic diagram: Way forward approach ................................................................. 141 Annex 2: Questionnaire of Household Survey ........................................................................... 142 References .......................................................................................................................... 153 3 Democratic Local Governance Capacity and Natural Disasters – Building Community Resilience: BANGLADESH CASE STUDY 1. Introduction and Context Introduction Being a government closer to the community by default local government has to play an important and critical role before, during and after disaster. Nevertheless, in general, local government remained to be one of the most understudied institutions in the disaster management literature (Wolensky & Wolensky, 1990). Two important areas are under- explored in terms of the role of local government in managing disasters. First, the issue has been examined mostly in the context of local government in developed countries, and insufficient attention has been paid to local government in developing countries. Second, the role, capabilities and the potential of local government in managing disaster have not been adequately examined. Indeed, in recent years many local government bodies have faced difficulties in dealing with disasters since they have inadequate knowledge and capabilities to manage (Kusumasari, Alam, and Dibben, 2012). Over the years there has been a significant paradigm shift in disaster management and preparedness. The role of Local Government has been recognized since mid 1990s with the significant paradigm shift in the approach to natural disaster prevention and management. The UN guideline for Natural Disaster prevention, preparedness and mitigation in 1994 categorically noted that along with other major institutional actors, active involvement of the vulnerable communities in disaster reduction, prevention and preparedness resulted in improved risk management. The guideline further emphasized the need for “promote community based approaches to vulnerability reduction”1. The UN guideline also made a major shift from the traditional emphasis on disaster response to disaster reduction to promote a "culture of prevention" as well as involvement of the local level actors including the local government”. This study aims at analyzing the state of local governance at the grass roots level i.e. Union Parishad (UP)2 of Bangladesh. The study broadly attempts to address two research questions: i. What are the strengths and weakness of local government (in particular the Union Parishads) to respond to natural disasters? ii. How can local governance capacity and community resilience be strengthened and collaborative processes improved as to make governance of natural disasters more effective? 1 Yokohama Strategy and Plan of Action for a Safer World – Guidelines for Natural Disaster Prevention, Preparedness and Mitigation, World Conference on Natural Disaster Reduction, Yokohama, Japan 23-27 May 1994. 2Union Parishad (UP) is the lowest level Local Government Unit in Bangladesh. There are 4586 Union Parishad in Bangladesh. An UP is composed of 15 to 20 villages with an average population of 28 thousand. 4 Democratic Local Governance Capacity and Natural Disasters – Building Community Resilience: BANGLADESH CASE STUDY The study further attempts to assess the institutional capacities and governance features of the UP to respond to the natural disasters and also assess the potential of enhancing the governance capacity and community resilience to address natural disasters more effectively. The study report is presented in nine chapters. Chapter 1 narrates the country context and background of the study. Chapter 2 of the study report describes the nature and types of Natural Disaster in Bangladesh. Chapter 3 presents a brief conceptual overview of Disaster Management and Governance, Chapter 4 presents the overall policy framework of disaster management in Bangladesh. Chapter 5 and 6 respectively describes the policy and institutional framework of disaster Management in Bangladesh Chapter 7 narrates the roles of the Local government in Disaster Management. The role and experiences of NGOs and Civil Society Organizations in disaster management is presented in Chapter 7 while Chapter 8 presents the findings of the state of disaster management in three Case study Union Parishads in disaster-prone areas of Bangladesh, and finally Chapter 9 summaries the lessons Learned and Policy Implications. The study is based on review of secondary information and documents, series of in-depth interviews, selected field observation trips in different Unions of disaster prone Upazila3s in the southern part of Bangladesh. Opinions and observations have been drawn from a select number of people’s representatives of the UP, local civil society members and extension workers of the Government. Records and documents of the UPs have been also reviewed. Semi structured interviews were conducted to tap the opinions and observations of the UP officials and members of the community of the UPs and Upazila based public officials. Three Focused Group Dissuasion Sessions have been organized at the Upazila level to tap the opinion, observations and views of various stakeholders. Bangladesh: Country Context Over the past 40 years since independence, Bangladesh has increased its real per capita income by more than 130 percent. There has been a significant progress made in reducing poverty where the percent of population living below the poverty line went down from more than 80 percent in early 1970s to 38.7 percent in 2010. However, Bangladesh still faces the reality that over 60 million of its population lives in poverty (GOB-SFYP, 1998). The majority of the country’s 50 million extreme poor is particularly vulnerable, since many live on marginal land such as river islands or along the coast. Since Bangladesh achieved Independence in 1971, GDP has more than tripled in real terms4, 3Upazila is the second tier of local government in Bangladesh. Each Upazila is composed of 12 to 15 Union Parishads. 4Govt of Bangladesh (1998), Sixth Five-Year Plan Planning Commission Dhaka and Govt of Bangladesh (2007); Bangladesh Economic Survey, 2007, Ministry of Finance, Dhaka. 5 Democratic Local Governance Capacity and Natural Disasters – Building Community Resilience: BANGLADESH CASE STUDY food production has increased three-fold5, the population growth rate has declined from around 2.9% per annum in 1974 to 1.4% in 2009and the country is now largely food secure. Over the last 20 years, growth has accelerated and the country is on track to become a middle income country by 2021 when it celebrates its 50 years of independence. In t the last two decades the economy has grown at over 6%. Between 1991 and 2005, the percentage of people living in poverty declined from 59% to 40% and the country's Human Development Index improved from 0.347 in 1975 to 0.547 in '2005. According to the HDR 2013 and UNDP, Bangladesh’s HDI value for 2012 is 0.515. Bangladesh is a disaster-prone country of an area of about 1,47,570 sq. km. with population nearing 160 million. The country is well within the tropics and is the largest delta in the world formed by the mighty rivers namely the Ganges, the Brahamaputra and the Meghna. Bangladesh is home to one of the world’s largest delta systems.