Research overview
AusAID is supporting the University of New South Wales, through the Australian Development Research Awards, to review the effectiveness of Community-Based Disaster Risk Management initiatives.
AusAID is also supporting the biennial Global Assessment Report produced by the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR).
University of New South Wales
Do Community-Based Disaster Risk Management initiatives impact on the social and economic costs of disasters? If so, how, why, when and in what way(s)?
Villages have adapted the design of houses to protect people from rising flood waters and small boats are used to transport people and food to sustain livelihoods. Photo: Rory Hunter, AusAID
Disasters can have a significant negative impact on a community’s livelihoods and wellbeing, erasing developmental gains and reinforcing the mechanisms that create poverty traps thereby increasing chronic poverty among the most vulnerable.
Community-Based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM) aims to engage at-risk communities in identifying and acting to reduce vulnerabilities to disasters.
AusAID is supporting the University of New South Wales, through the Australian Development Research Awards to review, document and synthesise existing evidence on what CBDRM initiatives work, in what contexts, and whether and how CBDRM interventions contribute to reducing the social and economic impact of disasters on communities.
This review will examine the literature on CBDRM and contribute to understanding how, why, when and in what ways CBDRM interventions reduce the social and economic costs of disasters. The objective is to provide policymakers and practitioners with policy-relevant information and analysis which can enhance actionable, community-based programming to limit the adverse effects of natural disasters.
2013 and 2015 Global Assessment Report
After training in DRR, children in Odweiene, Somalia, plant trees as wind breaks in their school. Photo: Mubarak Hussein Mohamed, Save the Children
AusAID is funding Geoscience Australia to contribute technical expertise for the Global Assessment Report (GAR) on Disaster Risk Reduction.
The GAR is a biennially published resource for understanding and analysing global disaster risk. The GAR also offers guidance and suggestions to governments and non-governmental actors on how they can reduce disaster risk together.