Bernard Manyena

Bridging the concepts of community resilience, fragile states and stabilisation

Purpose – The fragile states and stabilisation concepts appear to resonate with the concept of community resilience. Yet, there is barely a framework that integrates the three concepts. The authors posit that despite the increasing interest in community resilience in fragile states, there is much less clarity of resilience, fragility and stabilisation connections. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is based on the literature review of the concepts of community resilience, fragility and stabilisation. Findings – The findings restate that the state fragility results from the breakdown of the social contract between the state and its citizens. Whilst both resilience and stabilisation are desirable constructs in reducing fragility, they should be broadly underpinned by agency not only to enhance preventive, anticipatory, absorptive and adaptive actions but also lead to social transformative capacity where agency is embedded for communities to exercise some sort of...

After Sendai: Is Africa Bouncing Back or Bouncing Forward from Disasters?

The 187 countries that adopted the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 at the March 2015 UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction included most African countries. Many developing regions of the world, particularly in Asia and Latin America, made considerable progress in implementing the previous Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015. But, despite the fact that Africa is one of the regions most vulnerable and least resilient to disasters, which continue to be exacerbated by poverty, climate change, rapid urbanization, and structural transformation, it saw only slow progress. This article considers the challenges Africa faces in implementing the Sendai Framework and recommends that besides “Africanizing” Sendai goals and strengthening the region’s political commitment to disaster risk reduction (DRR), Africa should also develop a single framework that integrates DRR, sustainable development, climate change adaptation, and conflict prevention. Equally important is the need for a strong recognition that disasters are created endogenously as well as exogenously, and thus require local solutions and local investment.

Disaster Risk Governance: Evolution and Influences

Disaster risk reduction represents a shift in the paradigm of disaster management from ‘response and recovery’ to ‘prevention and preparedness’. International organisations have been key players in advancing this agenda. This chapter seeks to explore the challenging nature of contemporary disaster risk governance endeavours, which are intricately linked to the neoliberal agenda of ‘hollowing out’ state functions. Under this agenda there has become a reduced role for the state and an opening of the governing arena to a wider multitude of non-state actors. This chapter discusses three dimensions to the changing distribution of influence and responsibility in disaster risk governance. First, is the ‘upwards’ dimension, wherein governments are becoming more accountable to global institutions. Second, the ‘outward’ or mainstreaming disaster risk reduction agenda requires sectors to integrate disaster and development into their activities to develop better prevention and preparedness. Third, the ‘downward’ or decentralisation of disaster risk governance arguably, enables local communities to formulate realistic and implementable prevention, preparedness, response and recovery plans. In this complex and changing governance landscape of disaster risk reduction, as the neo-liberal state is hollowed out and responsibilities are reoriented upwards, outwards and downwards, the question arises: ‘who really governs DRR?’.

Introduction: Hazards, Risks, and Disasters in Society

This introductory chapter outlines why it is important to explore in more depth the relationships between environmental hazards, risks, and disasters in society. It presents an introduction to the challenges presented by mainstream approaches to the human side of disaster studies, whereby perspectives on environmental hazards and human development meet policy and practice. This is informed by analyzing the influences of extreme environmental events on society, exposure factors, and the nature of emergent systems of response. In this field, people are considered as vulnerable and resilient to disaster impacts, suffering, or prospering in times of climate change, development, societal instability, and governance scenarios that can be unpredictable and out of control. This is in part balanced by hope in the emergence of new-found awareness and capacity, to be able to live with hazards and risks, cope with disaster, and prosper socially and economically. A challenge presented by hazards, risks, and disasters is to achieve the capacity to both anticipate the unexpected and act on the known. A wealth of well-grounded emergent knowledge and experience exists to facilitate this, some of the most enlightening and innovative of which is revealed in the selection of contributions to this volume.

Resilience, panarchy and customary structures in Afghanistan

‘Fragile’ and ‘failed state’ discourse leads to a reductionist portrayal of failure that can obscure the presence of patterns of resilience. This paper examines the role of resilience theory, and one of its derivations, ‘panarchy’, in relation to the restorative agency of communities, simultaneous fragmentation and positive adaptation across multiple connected systems in Afghanistan. The results suggest that the resilience of Afghan communities to conflict and violence has depended on the durability of both their positive and negative adaptive strategies in providing a range of public services to fill in the void left by government. While customary structures have been sources of order and solidarity at the local level, they have also fomented destabilisation and frustrated the extension of the neoliberal governmentality and the securitisation agendas. Customary affiliations have adapted in multiple and overlapping ways, demonstrating a high level of community resilience in the face of widespread disruption brought about by conflict.

Conclusion: Hazards, Risks, and Disasters in Society

This closing chapter draws together overall emerging points from the volume, having resonance with societal aspects of the wider series of which this is a part. It offers reflection and guidance for an expanding field of study built from the rationale outlined in the Introduction with summative comments influenced by the three chapter sections. It is concluded that dealing with hazards, risks, and disasters in society requires an understanding of cognition and behavior and would require a cultural shift for much of humankind. Although a definitive checklist of actions to be taken is beyond the realms of any one volume, previous learning and the insights that are on the whole empirically presented within this volume indicate processes that are required to progress for the better.