Author: Taybah Alam

Mitigation aims to alleviate the long-term consequences and impacts of a disaster event. Julia Winer highlights the importance of community resilience when lessening the risks involved in a disaster. Community-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR) and Community-based disaster management (CBDM) are two approaches that reduce disaster risks through community participation. The approaches encourage the citizens to advocate for their own preparedness as a way to decrease dependency on external aid and resources.  The main goals of CBDRR and CBDM are to reduce vulnerabilities within the community by empowering people and local institutions, reduce the impact of structures that increase inequality and underdevelopment, and preserve infrastructure, the environment, and other resources. As an example of this, Julia encourages individual measures that prevent the environmental impacts of climate change by encouraging citizens to do their part. 

Click here to read the student’s full exemplar. 

An independent and well-equipped community can respond to and recover from disasters when aid is not available. Maryam Razzaq emphasizes how vulnerability increases when communities are overly dependent on external help and resources. Therefore, by establishing mitigation strategies beforehand, communities are better-suited for post-disaster rehabilitation. Such efforts are also helpful because they bring a sense of hope and security to the individuals in a community to be able to withstand disasters, collaborate with support agencies, and follow mitigation guidelines.

Click here to read her work. 

After the occurrence of an emergency disaster, vulnerable and high-risk communities are often in a state of despair as they try to overcome the obstacles created by the disaster. By implementing early warning systems or structural modifications, mitigation can limit the adverse outcomes by giving the community tools to be less vulnerable. Ciara Freeman emphasizes the importance of informing communities to support their abilities to withstand and recover from adversity.

Especially for bigger disasters impacting large populations, like droughts, mitigation efforts in the form of community resilience can utilize local resources to improve outcomes. However, communities should be supported through regulations, policies, and resources to be able to be empowered and avoid perceptions that may hinder their ability to act.

Click here to read more.

Hazard mitigation planning is a crucial step to reduce the risk of recovering from a disaster. Though emergency disasters pose a threat to the affected communities, it also creates an opportunity to improve upon risk management practices and policies for future events. Mitigation can reduce risk greatly or even eliminate it if plans focus on disaster-prone areas and consider all potential scenarios. One major way to enforce mitigation is through community resilience, which can strengthen response and recovery efforts. Michelle refers to the literature to discuss measures to strengthen local communities, which are frequently the first-line responders during an event,  such as the Community-Based Disaster Risk Reduction and the Community-Based Disaster Management programs. Resilient communities that are supported by such programs can improve their preparedness practices by addressing issues of health and health systems, resources, and adaptation.

Click here to read more about Michelle’s assessment. 

In March 2015, Cyclone Pam struck the islands of Vanuatu as the second most intense tropical cyclone of the South Pacific Ocean. Though food stocks, water sources, crops, health facilities, and schools were severely damaged, there were only 11 deaths due to the efficiency of disaster preparedness and responses by the Vanuatu government. Namely, the warnings sent by Vanuatu’s National Warning Centre to inform residents despite nearly 65% of the gross domestic product being destroyed. Cyclone Pam was a category 5 storm of intense winds; resulting in up to 70% of the population being affected, more than 70% of Vanuatu’s health facilities were damaged, and 95% of the crops were spoiled. The consequences of the cyclone were further perpetuated by poor sanitation and increasing rates of acute diarrheal disease in children. Additionally, the public health sector was faced with the possibility of worsening incidence rates of respiratory illnesses, waterborne and mosquito-borne diseases such as typhoid and dengue fever.

The public health response to Cyclone Pam was very targeted; preventative interventions were prioritized such as childhood immunization, reproductive and sexual health services, and domestic violence prevention. Furthermore, international aid partners helped residents protect their homes and provided shelter kits/hygiene supplies, communal kitchens, and clean drinking water. 

Despite the commendable efforts of Vanuatu’s government and the Ministry of Health, Vanuatu is still very susceptible to disasters so monitoring disasters and warning systems are critical for future threats.

Read the full case study here.