It is necessary that a community should understand the disaster risks to which they are exposed. The community needs to be well informed about the physical features of their location / settlement and the hazard events they are likely to experience.
Such a social consciousness about disasters leads to building an organization / network within the community for risk reduction. It brings together the community around a common program. Such a program needs to have a clear set of objectives and outcomes. It must have well-defined activities, a plan for mobilizing community resources, and a strategy for making it sustainable.
Community programs focus on socio-economic vulnerability. They are meant to provide necessary resources to households and communities for better preparedness and mitigation. Though community programs include technical components, they avoid large-scale structural solutions such as embankments, levees and dykes.
They pursue an inter-sectoral and multi-disciplinary approach such as water and soil conservation, livelihood and shelter programs for optimizing resources and providing sustainable solutions.
Community programs tend to depend upon local knowledge, skills and capacities, which they can use for making necessary changes and adjustments in their living conditions and environment. Small in scale, most of these interventions are less expensive.
They need to involve community members in the entire cycle of disaster management- risk assessment, preparedness and mitigation, and response. Community participation in decision-making and implementation increases the program ownership and benefits and brings accountability.
Further, it needs to have an integrated approach under which pre-, during and post-disaster measures are planned and implemented as necessary by the community.
Community based DRM includes,
- Applies local knowledge, skills and capacities.
- Seek communities as active participant and decision makers,
- Address different stages of disaster cycle: Prevention, preparedness and mitigation, and response and recovery.
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