RESILIENT RECOVERY IN ASIA

Major national disasters and smaller local disasters continue to inflict heavy impacts upon countries in Asia. Despite successful disaster risk reduction activities by communities, governments, and development partners, disasters do occur – causing damage and destruction to lives, infrastructure, public services, economic activity, and broader socio-economic development. Effective systems, procedures, and capacities to respond, assess, and recover quickly from disasters is essential for local and national governments.

 

When a disaster occurs, the first priority is to save lives, treat the injured, provide access to basic services, and conduct urgent short-term repairs. After the disaster response phase, the recovery and reconstruction activities begin. In many countries in the region, governments and other stakeholders have undertaken post-disaster needs assessments. The assessments helped identify the areas with the greatest need, assisted prioritization of recovery tasks, and supported the mobilization of resources from the government and development partners.

 

In the following months and years, the specific activities for recovery and reconstruction are implemented, from strategic planning to proposal development, from project design to monitoring and evaluation. The need to ‘build back better’ for resilient recovery has been identified as a long-term priority after many disasters.

 

This website offers a resource of practical recovery guidance and tools for governments and other stakeholders to review and adapt to country contexts and systems. The guidance and tools build on experience in multiple countries in the region which continue to strengthen institutional arrangements and capacities for post-disaster assessment and recovery planning. While developed under a project, the team aims to build and update the contents in the future.

AIM AND OBJECTIVES

The aim of the guidance and tools is to provide:

  • ‘a practical set of post-disaster recovery options and tools, primarily for national and sub-national governments of Asian countries’

 

 

There are two main objectives of the guidance and tools:

  1. To provide a simplified guide that will enable national ministries and agencies and local government offices to formulate a comprehensive post-disaster recovery plan with coherent and actionable policies, strategies, programs, and projects;
  2. To raise awareness, appreciation, and understanding of the importance of mainstreaming disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) into post-disaster recovery plans.

 

 

Aligned with the aim and objectives, the intended users of this guide are:

  1. Government officials from the Ministries of Planning, National Disaster Management Offices (NDMOs), or other lead agency who are responsible for preparing national post-disaster recovery plan;
  2. Planning officers of other ministries and agencies who are responsible for preparing their own respective ministry or sector recovery plans;
  3. Planning officers of the local governments who are responsible for preparing the local post-disaster recovery plans;
  4. Other Government officials who are involved in post-disaster recovery processes
  5. Staff from development partners intending to assist the governments in preparing and implementing the recovery plan.

 

KEY POINTS AND RATIONALE

During the development of the guidance and tools for resilient recovery, the team has referred to a number of key points and assumptions:

  • LOCAL DISASTERS CALL FOR LOCAL CAPACITIES. Disasters are local events, and sub-national governments are normally responsible for response, recovery, and reconstruction. National governments and disaster management committees may issue decisions to be implemented by sub-national governments (especially after large disasters).
  • DECENTRALIZATION IS INCREASING IN THE REGION, AND POST-DISASTER GOVERNANCE REFLECTS IT. Countries in Asia are shifting towards decentralized governance systems, whereby sub-national governments have increasing decisions on local development. In the post-disaster context, this is also reflected. National disaster recovery plans are based on local post-disaster assessments and recovery plans.
  • RECOVERY TOOLS AND OPTIONS MUST ADDRESS USER NEEDS. While there is much variety in Asian countries, our experience is that sub-national government departments and officials appreciate concise, informative, and practical options and tools for post-disaster assessment and recovery planning. The tools are designed to be easy to adapt to local contexts.
  • APPLICATION IN BOTH LARGE AND SMALL DISASTERS. The set of practical options and tools should be useful for small and large disasters alike.
  • BUILDING BACK BETTER FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT. The impacts of one major disaster can set back the socio-economic gains achieved over several years. Such impacts will continue to cause the failure to achieve the socio-economic targets of the country unless disaster risk reduction mechanisms are integrated into post-disaster recovery plans for resilient recovery.
  • MAINSTREAMING RISK REDUCTION INTO RECOVERY IS A SOUND INVESTMENT. Mainstreaming disaster risk reduction in recovery planning is a sound investment despite some probabilities that disasters may not happen again. The uncertainty about the occurrence, intensity, and scope of disasters should not restrict the national and local governments in formulating policies and strategies to reduce the risks associated with them.
  • DISASTER IMPACTS ARE SHARED ACROSS SECTORS AND LEVELS OF SOCIETY. Disaster and climate change impacts are shared – although at varying degrees – across sectors and levels of society. Hence, risk reduction interventions should also be treated as shared or integrated solutions within and among sectors and within and among regions or provinces. For instance, a huge river flowing through several provinces may pose varying degrees of risk among local people, but the potential adverse economic impacts may be shared by many sectors and even people outside the areas.
  • MAINSTREAMING RISK REDUCTION INTO RECOVERY PROVIDES A MONITORING MECHANISM. Integrating disaster risk reduction into recovery planning will provide a feedback mechanism in assessing post-disaster socio-economic performance of the country. Since disaster risks are dynamic and vary with the development activities of a country, risk assessment and risk reduction interventions should also be pro-actively monitored and evaluated.

REFERENCES

As the guidance and tools aim to support government officials from national and sub-national governments in Asian countries, it will draw practical lessons from countries including Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

 

Building on the project experiences and close interactions particularly with national and local sector officials, the project team has learned much about the needs of officials in Asian countries for post-disaster assessment and recovery planning. Through the project and other assignments (see Table: ADPC’s past projects and initiatives on post-disaster recovery), the team has developed a large number of tools and guidelines in different countries.

The website will also refer to other Asian countries and international practices where appropriate. The website intends to build on and be consistent, as far as possible, with a number of key regional and international guidelines on post-disaster systems, including:

 

  1. “Disaster Recovery Toolkit”, produced by the Tsunami Global Lessons Learned Project (TGLLP) in partnership with the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC), 2015.
  2. “ASEAN Disaster Recovery Guidelines”, produced by the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement of the Government of Myanmar, in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme Myanmar, under development in 2015.
  3. “Guide to Developing Disaster Recovery Frameworks”, produced by the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) of the World Bank, the European Union, and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 2014.

Therefore, this website will refer to relevant sections of such guidelines.

ADPC’s POST-DISASTER RECOVERY EXPERIENCES

ADPC’s past projects and initiatives on post-disaster recovery Year
Developing online post-disaster damage and loss reporting system for Sri Lanka 2016–2018
Developing post-disaster needs assessment and recovery planning methodology and delivering capacity-building support for the Government of India 2014–2015
Strengthening capacities, tools, and processes at national and sub-national levels to hasten the recovery process following disaster events in Myanmar, Philippines, and Vietnam 2013–2015
Providing institutional and capacity-building support for sub-national post-disaster reconstruction activities in Khammouane province, Lao PDR 2012–2014
Developing a regional handbook and toolkit for disaster recovery practitioners: government officials, UN agencies, and NGOs 2010–2012
Establishing an Asian expert group on disaster recovery with members from government agencies, regional bodies, technical institutes, and NGOs 2010
Adapting post-disaster needs assessment and recovery planning methodology and delivering capacity-building support for the Government of Lao PDR 2009–2010
Serving as a joint assessment team member and providing technical assistance to adapt the post-disaster needs assessment methodology for the post-Ketsana recovery in Cambodia and Lao PDR 2009
Providing post-disaster recovery assistance to the Government of Myanmar with ASEAN in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis 2008–2009
Conducting a regional study on the socio-economic impacts of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami 2005–2006
Providing capacity-building support for post-tsunami damage and loss estimation in affected countries 2005–2006
Developing damage and loss assessment methodology and providing capacity-building support for the Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority, India 2004–2006
Conducting regional and national training and workshops on damage assessment and needs analysis in Asia 2001–
Serving as a joint assessment team member for damage and loss assessment after the 2001 Gujarat Earthquake in India 2001

ABOUT THE PROJECT AND READY4RECOVERY INITIATIVE

The Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) is implementing the project “Strengthening Disaster Risk Reduction Capacity in Selected ASEAN Countries”, with generous support from the New Zealand Aid Programme. The multi-country project aims to increase the resilience of the selected ASEAN countries through strengthened DRR systems and decision-support tools at national and sub-national levels. To achieve this goal two areas are focused upon: 1) improving the use of risk information (Lao PDR and Myanmar); and 2) enhancing preparedness for the recovery phase of disasters (Myanmar, the Philippines, and Vietnam).

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GUIDANCE AND TOOLS FOR RESILIENT RECOVERY