Re-Establishing the Nexus Between Sustainable Development and Disaster Risk Management: Exploring the Scope and Challenges in Stakeholder Participation

The stakeholders involved in sustainable development are also involved in risk and disaster related activities. Disaster situations bring together multiple stakeholders. This is one of the complexities of disaster response and management in general in which many actors ranging from public to private come into play. Governmental agencies create new roles to respond to disaster needs. Similarly, non-governmental organizations with varying interests and objectives interact in new and unplanned constellations. These actors face different challenges in the different phases of disaster management, ranging from organising relief and rescue to help in recovery and disaster risk reduction. While coordination features in all phases, its characteristics differ significantly in terms of stakes, urgency, complexity and transparency for those involved.

With increasing numbers of natural disasters handling economic stress post-disasters becomes extremely challenging. One of the reasons for such losses is the failure to establish a clear nexus between development programs, disaster risk reduction and disaster recovery programs. Given the process of repeated learning after disasters, it calls for mainstreaming disaster risk reduction with sustainable development. This helps in reducing economic losses and various impacts during disasters. It also reveals the importance that states place on issues of vulnerability. It is therefore important to address issues of development during disaster reconstruction. If recovery helps communities to build back better, resilience helps to face future hazards and minimize loss. When disasters are seen as isolated events, disaster response becomes more prominent than building a culture of preparedness and addressing developmental concerns. The paper explores the challenges in mainstreaming risk reduction with sustainable development and thereby the factors affecting participation of stakeholders in the process.