Regional Policy for Disaster Risk Management in Developing Countries Within the Sendai Framework: A Systematic Review

The Global Forum on Science and Technology for Disaster Resilience was held in Tokyo from 23 to 25 November 2017 with 228 participants from 42 countries. To implement the priorities for action in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) 2015–2030, the Forum aimed to encourage all stakeholders to develop guidelines for supporting national platforms for DRR by making the best use of science and technology and producing a synthesis report on disaster science and technology. During the Forum, seven working groups held presentations and panel discussions that corresponded to the four priorities for action in the Sendai Framework (1. Understanding disaster risk; 2. Strengthening disaster risk governance; 3. Investing in DDR; and 4. “Build Back Better”), as well as on Interdisciplinary collaboration, National platforms, and Synthesis report. At the end of the Forum, seven policy briefs, as well as “Tokyo Statement 2017,” were adopted. In this special issue of the Journal of Disaster Research, co-chairs of the working groups summarize their discussions and recommendations for each working group. Additional papers on the role of private sectors and Nation’s Synthesis are also included in the issue. We thank all the authors and reviewers of the papers, as well as all the participants of the Forum for their valuable contributions.

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 has been directing global efforts in disaster risk reduction since its adoption in 2015, and its unprecedented emphasis on health has affirmed unequivocally the critical role of health throughout the disaster cycle. The Sendai Framework calls for the strengthening of resilience through the prevention and reduction of hazard exposure and vulnerability, and increased preparedness for response and recovery. While health resilience is one of the core themes in the Sendai Framework, with it being recognized as both a determinant and outcome of disaster risk reduction at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Cancun, Mexico in 2017, its impact at implementation level requires sustained efforts on all fronts. The aspirations and recommendations set out in the Bangkok Principles on the implementation of health aspects of the Sendai Framework have not yet been fully addressed. To synergize the concerted efforts all relevant practitioners, Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management (Health-EDRM) has emerged as a discipline that cuts across emergency and disaster medicine, disaster risk reduction, humanitarian response, community health resilience, and health systems resilience. Health-EDRM highlights the intersection of health and disaster risk reduction and has been playing a key role in supporting the implementation of the health aspects of the Sendai Framework. Major challenges however remain for Health-EDRM to develop into a well-established field of inquiry, with the quality of data and research methodology requiring urgent attention.

Historically, disaster response management for children and young people, people from linguistically diverse cultural backgrounds and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been shaped by a vulnerability and risk discourse, informed by trauma-informed and risk mitigation strategies. These are vital, but the vulnerability discourse has moved into other areas of disaster prevention, preparedness, response, recovery and resilience. Vulnerability has been linked to pre-existing, socially produced inequalities and power structures. This has worked to homogenise, marginalise and diminish the capability of community members in resilience efforts. The United Nations Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 [Sendai Framework] calls for governments and relevant stakeholders to ‘advocate for resilient communities and an inclusive and all-of-society disaster risk management’ (UNDRR 2015, p.23). This includes the meaningful engagement of people who are marginalised from resilience building. The Sendai Framework makes a specific argument for engaging children and young people, declaring they are agents of change who should be given the space to contribute to disaster risk reduction. The aim of this paper is to consider how the Sendai Framework has influenced the inclusion of young people in disaster resilience and to introduce emerging evidence of how young people are joining the dots to reimagine community resilience.

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 (SFDRR) represents an inclusive approach to disaster risk reduction, linked to development and recovery. Building on previous international guidelines, the SFDRR promotes practical and measurable outcomes for reducing disaster losses, including indicators to measure progress towards seven specific global targets. Evaluated in the context of the priorities and global targets of the SFDRR, the article considers the case of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011 to illustrate advances and limitations in pre-disaster tsunami hazard engineering and post-disaster recovery. With respect to the targets set out in the Sendai Framework related to risk reduction and tsunami engineering, especially Priority 1, understanding disaster risk, there have been significant advances in hazard assessment and systems for tsunami detection and warning. Although the SFDRR emphasizes actions in the recovery phase through Priority 4, enhancing disaster preparedness with an emphasis on the concept of build back better, on its own this does not function as a clear directive for guiding recovery. However, the overall people-centered and inclusive approach of the SFDRR, as well as the global targets and several sub-priorities, can be a useful way to shape good practices in recovery and evaluate recovery progress.

Future research and innovation priorities in the field of natural hazards, disaster risk reduction, disaster risk management and climate change adaptation: a shared vision from the ESPREssO project

Building sustainable and resilient societies is a multidimensional challenge that affects achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In crises and disasters, civil protection authorities typically use emergency powers and a command-and-control approach to manage resources and to design and implement disaster management interventions. They centralise knowledge, technologies and responsibilities for prevention, mitigation and monitoring, while stifling the capacities of local communities to reduce disaster risks and impacts. The mechanism they enact leads to a poor understanding of the capacities of local people to learn and transform, and of how community wellbeing, vulnerabilities, and resilience influence disaster risks. The mechanism does not strengthen the role of local communities in disaster risk reduction. Instead, it facilitates disaster capitalism at all levels of society. Drawing on the disaster risk reduction and resilience paradigm and on our analysis of the disaster management interventions conducted before and after the 6 April 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy, we discuss the main constraints to implementing the four Priority Areas in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction: (1) Understanding risk in its multiple dimensions; (2) strengthening disaster risk governance; (3) investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience; and (4) enhancing preparedness and build back better in response, recovery and reconstruction. We discuss how top-down, emergency-centred civil protection approaches create second disasters, and fail in all four priorities. We suggest that shifts in paradigm and investment are required in disaster management and development practice from centralised civil protection systems to decentralised, socially sustainable community empowerment systems.

Adaptive governance as a catalyst for transforming the relationship between development and disaster risk through the Sendai Framework?

This special issue focuses on “Build Back Better,” which is the key concept of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015–2030). The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction provides United Nations member states and economies concrete actions to protect their economic development achievements from disaster risk. However, how “Build Back Better” can be measured and linked to disaster risk reduction remain unclear. Three papers here analyze the results of the “Life Recovery Survey Five Years After the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake,” which was conducted in June of 2016. The first Life Recovery Survey was conducted four years after the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake to document the extent to which the disaster victims had been able to rebuild their lives. Subsequently, the survey was conducted every two years until ten years after the earthquake. The survey was also conducted in the areas affected by the 2004 Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake and the 2007 Niigata Chuetsu-Oki Earthquake. Five years after the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, the present authors conducted a survey to document the actual situation of the disaster victims in Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima prefectures, which were the hardest hit by the disaster. In addition, we analyzed the history of Nankai Trough earthquakes with the goal of preparing for the next Nankai Trough earthquake, which is predicted to occur in the near future. These results make it possible to identify issues and make recommendations on the kinds of systems that should be implemented. It is our hope that this special issue will provide basic data to elucidate these issues.

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 was agreed at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan in March 2015 and endorsed by the UN General Assembly in June 2015. The goal of the Sendai Framework is to prevent new and reduce existing disaster risk. UNISDR coordinates and ensures synergies among the disaster reduction activities of the United Nations system and regional organizations and stakeholders The role of science and technology in providing the evidence and knowledge on risk features prominently in the Sendai Framework. Expanding the interface between science, technology and policy is therefore essential for effective disaster risk reduction. In January 2016, UNISDR hosted the Science and Technology Conference on the Implementation of the Sendai Framework. The main outcome of the conference was the launching of the Science and Technology Partnership and the endorsement of the science and technology roadmap that outlines expected outcomes, actions, and deliverables under each of the four priority actions of the Sendai Framework. Over the last twenty years, the majority of disasters have been caused by floods, storms, heatwaves and other weather-related events. Most of these disasters can cause landslides, which in turn cause hundreds of billions of dollars in damage and hundreds of thousands of deaths and injuries each year The International Consortium on Landslides (ICL) 2015–2025 and The Sendai Partnerships promotes global understanding and reduction of landslide disaster risk. They will contribute significantly to the implementation of the science and technology roadmap by providing practical solutions and tools, education and capacity building, and communication and public outreach to reduce landslides risks. UNISDR fully supports the work of the Sendai Partnerships and the community of practice on landslides risks

The Global Alliance of Disaster Research Institutes held its 3rd Global Summit of Research Institutes for Disaster Risk Reduction at the Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University, Japan, 19–21 March, 2017. The Global Alliance seeks to contribute to enhancing disaster risk reduction (DRR) and disaster resilience through the collaboration of research organizations around the world. The summit aim was to expand the platform for bridging science and policy making by evaluating the evidence base needed to meet the expected outcomes and actions of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 and its Science and Technology Roadmap. The summit reflected the international nature of collaborative research and action. A pre-conference questionnaire filled out by Global Alliance members identified 323 research projects that are indicative of current research. These were categorized to support seven parallel discussion sessions related to the Sendai Framework priorities for action. Four discussion sessions focused on research that aims to deepen the understanding of disaster risks. Three cross-cutting sessions focused on research that is aimed at the priorities for action on governance, resilience, and recovery. Discussion summaries were presented in plenary sessions in support of outcomes for widely enhancing the science and policy of DRR.

Community-Based Disaster Management (CBDM) emphasizes the centrality of local participation in efforts to build resilience and reduce disaster risks. While the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 advocates inclusive and community-driven preparedness strategies, empirical research on the determinants of an individual’s willingness to engage in disaster management training remains underdeveloped. This study addressed this gap by examining the willingness of community members to participate in disaster preparedness programs, as well as identifying the socio-demographic and psychosocial factors that influence this willingness. Guided by the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), this study conceptualized willingness as an element shaped by the attitude toward disaster preparedness, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. Variables such as age, gender, income, and education were investigated as moderating factors. Findings suggest that higher educational attainment is associated with greater awareness and readiness to engage in training, while older age groups tend to demonstrate stronger participation, possibly due to enhanced life experiences and risk perception. This study contributes theoretically and practically by integrating behavioral insight with disaster policy frameworks. It offers evidence-based recommendations for designing targeted and culturally appropriate training programs that create proactive community engagement and advance the Sendai Framework’s objectives.

This article reviews climate change within the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 (SFDRR), analyzing how climate change is mentioned in the framework’s text and the potential implications for dealing with climate change within the context of disaster risk reduction. Three main categories are examined. First, climate change affecting disaster risk and disasters, demonstrating too much emphasis on the single hazard driver and diminisher of climate change. Second, cross-sectoral approaches, for which the SFDRR treads carefully, thereby unfortunately entrenching artificial differences and divisions, although appropriately offering plenty of support to other sectors from disaster risk reduction. Third, implementation, for which climate change plays a suitable role without being overbearing, but for which other hazard influencers should have been treated similarly. Overall, the mentions of climate change within the SFDRR put too much emphasis on the hazard part of disaster risk. Instead, within the context of the three global sustainable development processes that seek agreements in 2015, climate change could have been used to further support an all-vulnerabilities and all-resiliences approach. That could be achieved by placing climate change adaptation as one subset within disaster risk reduction and climate change mitigation as one subset within sustainable development.

BackgroundThe Sendai Framework is the United Nations’ most significant approach to reducing the risk of disasters from 2015 to 2030. This framework designed for all communities. However, communities should create operational and remedial strategies based on their unique circumstances. Considering the gaps in the implementation of Sendai framework strategies in Iran, as a developing country, the present study was designed.MethodThis study was conducted by using a qualitative direct content analysis method to find out the expert’s opinions on the implementation of the Sendai framework in Iran from 2021 to 2023. 35 experts in the focus group discussion and 9 experts in the interview were the participants of the study.ResultsStudy findings were merged and reported as one main theme entitled Executive actions for implementing the Sendai Framework, four categories, and 37 codes. Eleven codes for the strategy of understanding disaster risk, 11 codes for the strategy of strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk, eight codes for the strategy of Investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience, and finally, seven codes for the strategy of enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response and to “Build Back Better” in recovery, rehabilitation, and reconstruction were identified as implementation solutions.ConclusionThe Sendai Framework has not provided any detailed implementation solutions because the countries’ economic, social, level of development, etc., are different. The study’s findings can be used as a guide for other developing countries.

Due to the geographical, geological, and meteorological conditions, Japan has experienced almost all types of natural disasters except for drought. As a result, Japan has a long history of disaster management experience, which can serve as a useful reference for other countries. He is particularly well known for his scientific and technical research and international contributions in this field. All three previous UN World Conferences on Disaster Risk Reduction have been held in Japan, and the Sendai Framework, adopted in 2015, lays out a range of issues related to disaster risk management that each country should tackle by 2030. This chapter aims to explore the historical trends, characteristics, problems, and roots in disaster management in Japan. In particular, the chapter argues that, concerning the Sendai Framework’s goal of reducing community and national disaster risk through hard and soft measures, Japan’s actual disaster risk reduction is too inclined to the hard side. The chapter points out the historical, economic, and legal aspects of disaster risk reduction as the causes.

Disaster risk management refers to the application of plans and procedures for reducing disaster risk to prevent new disaster risks, minimize current disaster risk, and manage residual risk. This process helps to reduce disaster losses and increase resilience (Disaster Risk Management | UNDRR, 2007). This study explored the experiences of disaster risk reduction and management personnel through a qualitative research method. The participants of this study were the ten (10) participants chosen from the five (5) DRRM sectors in the municipalities of the Province of Guimaras. All participants were subjected to individual in-depth interviews. The findings of this study are described in emergent themes. Four (4) emergent themes described the positive and negative experiences of the participants in the implementation of disaster risk reduction and management programs. For the positive experiences, two (2) emergent themes were developed, namely: Empowering Community Resilience and Satisfaction of Effective Crisis Response. For the negative experiences, two (2) emergent themes were also developed, namely: Hurdles in Promoting Public Compliance and Inadequate Resources and Manpower Constraints. Meanwhile, two (2) emergent themes were formulated to explain how the participants address the challenges encountered in the implementation of disaster risk reduction and management programs, namely: Collaborative Partnerships for Resource Management and Capacity Building through Continuous Training. Finally, two (2) emergent themes were created to express the Aspirations of the Participants to Improve the Quality of Service, namely: Institutional Support and Resource Sustainability and Fostering Proactive Community Engagement. Based on the emergent themes identified, it is advised that the DRRM personnel be provided with consistent resource management and community engagement training to enhance their ability to address constraints more effectively and promote a proactive stance on disaster risk reduction.