High-Level Regional Discussion Forum

Ready for Recovery: Learning from Recent Disasters and Setting the Priority Needs for Southeast Asia


On December 26, 2004, Southeast Asia experienced one of the worst disasters in modern history. In a matter of hours, a tsunami, triggered by a massive earthquake, swept more than 230,000 people, and injured thousands more in the region, including some parts of South Asia and East Africa. Thousands of families were left homeless, while buildings, roads, bridges and other physical infrastructures were totally destroyed. The total losses from the disaster amounted to more than 15 billion US dollars. This amount, however, is just a fraction of the massive effort and costs required in order to recover and reconstruct the affected areas.


Today, more than ever, 10 years after the Indian Ocean Tsunami devastated many countries in Southeast Asia, it is very much important for the region to look back and reflect from the region's experiences in disaster recovery and reconstruction in order to move forward, strengthen capacities, and rebuild much resilient communities in the aftermath of disasters. The commemoration of the Indian Ocean Tsunami provides a good opportunity for examining recovery and reconstruction systems, mechanisms, and efforts in the ASEAN sub-region in other to help inform future R&R decisions.


This forum intends to gather key government representatives on disaster reduction, recovery and reconstruction from Myanmar, Vietnam, the Philippines, and other ASEAN Member States, technical experts, and the international development partners to discuss the recovery and reconstruction concerns, and the priority needs of Southeast Asian countries to be met over the next few years. Additionally, the discussion forum aims to discuss some emerging issues, concerns, as well as opportunities on recovery and reconstruction and post disaster needs assessment mechanisms.


The two-day forum intends to:

1. To share country experiences on post-disaster needs assessment and recovery, the institutional arrangements, mechanisms and capacities;

2. To consult and seek inputs for regional recovery initiatives and deepened regional cooperation, and

3. To discuss best practices and challenges as a means to move forward for a Southeast Asia region which is ready for recovery.

 

Date and venue


8-9 December 2014



Swissotel Nai Lert Park Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand

 

Blog 

 
   
Resilient recovery, more than rapid reconstruction
Disaster recovery has traditionally been the least well-understood phase of emergency management, from the standpoint of both the research community and practitioners. Recently, disaster recovery has become an increasingly important topic

By Ms. Mareike Bentfeld

Disaster recovery has traditionally been the least well-understood phase of emergency management, from the standpoint of both the research community and practitioners. Recently, disaster recovery has become an increasingly important topic, especially when looking at some of the disasters that hit the region in the last couple of years, which required enormous recovery and reconstruction programs. At the same time, the important contribution of recovery with regard to sustainable development and disaster risk reduction has been stressed.

The idea of including vulnerability reduction measures in response and recovery activities has been brought forward for the first time after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. During that time, the concept of ‘building back better’ has been introduced in the humanitarian community. The concept ‘building back better’ is based on the assumption that disasters provide an opportunity for re-development and allow the inclusion of disaster risk reduction measures in development planning. According to the International Recovery Platform (2007), any recovery activity that does not decrease the underlying vulnerabilities of the affected population is merely sowing the seeds for future disasters.

The importance of including disaster risk reduction measures in recovery is widely acknowledged nowadays. The Asia-Pacific input document for the Post-2015 Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction states that holistic risk management through risk-sensitive development and ‘building back better’ recovery and reconstruction is one of the key aspects to strengthen overall resilience. However, despite the widespread acknowledgement, often activities that have been framed as ‘building back better’ are merely concerned with the speed in which reconstruction has taken place, and with the degree of community participation and coordination and cooperation between different actors.

In order for recovery to contribute to resilience building, a more comprehensive approach to recovery is therefore needed. Recovery should not be measured in speed, or in the degree of coordination between various actors, but in the successfulness of recovery activities in decreasing underlying vulnerabilities. A famous example for the importance of a comprehensive approach to recovery is the analysis of the impact of the coastal buffer zone in Sri Lanka that has been established after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. After the tsunami hit Sri Lanka on December 2004, the Government of Sri Lanka established a “no reconstruction” zone next to the coast where no reconstruction or repair of buildings was allowed. While this zone seemed to be a useful tool to reduce disaster risk as the exposure to future hazards has been reduced, the decision to have a ‘no reconstruction’ zone incited massive relocation of the affected population in this area and resulted in social, economic and environmental problems that severely undermined the well-being of the affected population. An analysis of this policy carried out by Ingram et al. (2006) showed that the buffer zone policy gave disproportionate attention to reducing exposure to future tsunamis and, subsequently, did not address the social, economic and institutional factors that influenced vulnerability to the hazard.

Post-disaster recovery activities that claim to build back better should therefore be based on a detailed analysis of the components of vulnerability - including social, economic and environmental aspects - in a specific area. An analysis of the underlying aspects of vulnerability will allow governments and humanitarian actors to make well-informed decision about the measures that will be needed in the short- and long-term perspective of recovery to effectively decrease vulnerability in the short and long run. Only when recovery activities manage to take into account not only the immediate needs of the affected population but also the underlying vulnerabilities will recovery be able to contribute to the building of resilience and support the development of safe and resilient communities.