chapter 4 - DRK

Strictly under embargo until Wednesday 22 September at 00:01 GMT (02:01 Geneva time)152CHAPTER 7muchthey contribute to reducing everyday risks and to their understanding of howvulnerability factors are embedded in the local development process.In Latin America, over the last 20 years, a network of academics and practitionersfrom different countries and institutions has promoted new approaches to disaster riskmanagement which stressed disaster risk reduction, local action and local governmentresponsibility, and worked with vulnerable groups to understand and address disasterrisk. Much of this work has been promoted directly or indirectly by La Red de EstudiosSociales en Prevención de Desastres en America Latina (Network of social studies in disasterprevention in Latin America).Many nations in Latin America now have well-established institutional structuresto support disaster risk reduction. In addition to the Colombian and Nicaraguansystems mentioned above, other nations have focused on broadening national emergencysystems. For example, Peru’s national system and its civil protection committee,both of which are emergency response structures, focus on capacity building,training and awareness-raising. In El Salvador, many associations of municipalities ormicro-regions exist, for example, the association for land-use planning in the JiboaValley.Associations and networks of local governments have also been created to unite effortsin addressing risk reduction. After Hurricane Mitch in Honduras, the municipalitiesof La Masica, Arizona, Esparta, San Francisco and El Porvenir established an association,MAMUCA (Community of central Atlántida municipalities), to unite effortsand create a platform for dialogue and cooperation in preparing for extreme events andcoordinating local response. This helped shift national disaster management systems tocommunity level. It involved participatory diagnosis and planning, awareness- raising,prioritizing strategic reconstruction activities and participating in local decisionmakingthrough public meetings. MAMUCA also became involved in the nationaland regional disaster risk management systems, which helped improve evacuationsduring storms, through community-based disaster reduction practices, and encouragedthe formation of local emergency committees integrated with municipal, regional andnational emergency committees. The municipal emergency committees are chaired bythe mayors and include representatives of the local council and local institutions, suchas the police, the fire department and the Red Cross.It is still difficult to get national programmes and networks to support local actionand encourage coordination between local governments. Risk reduction needs to bepromoted and supported in most sectors of local government and coordinated betweenthem – no easy task institutionally. Reviews on the actions, programmes and structuresset up after Hurricane Mitch show mixed results in terms of how they managed toembed disaster risk within local development and thus address the structural causes ofvulnerability.