An Operational Framework for Addressing Socio-Political Environment of Disaster Risk Reduction-Oriented Spatial Planning

Spatial planning plays a significant role in disaster risk reduction (DRR); UN Habitat has proposed methods and implementation strategies of spatial planning at local level in this context (UN Habitat 2011). However, DRR has only partially taken this into account in the development and the implementation of numerous spatial plans.  Local level socio-political environment (SPE) plays a significant role in effective and functional spatial planning Lack of good governance, incompetence of political institutions and corruption hinder the policy planning and implementation procedure, mostly in developing countries. This paper addresses particularly the need for a comprehensive understanding of the local socio-political conditions in context of DRR that hinder the planning process and implementation, using the developing countries examples: Mongla Port City in Bangladesh and Medellín in Colombia. Both of them are subject to natural risk – storm surges in Mongla and flash flooding in Medellín. The obvious differences between them (cultural environment, social structure, level of economic development, intensity of the natural hazards, city size etc.) are considered to define the SPE which may be common to different areas in the developing world. Our findings show that in the studied regions, spatial planning is not given enough importance in local level DRR planning. Its implementation is difficult because of lack of coordination and conflicting interests between different stakeholders and also external influence from development partners. The methodology applied in this paper to address the socio-political dimensions of planning procedure is applicable to other similar contexts and that will contribute to global DRR.