From the Concept of Risk and Risk Management to Parameters for Action: A Basic Summary

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REGIONAL PROGRAMME ON RISK MANAGEMENT IN CENTRAL
AMERICA

• From the Concept of Risk and Risk Management to
  Parameters for Action A Basic Summary
• Allan Lavell, Ph.D.

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The usefulness of the concept

• A proper global concept of the notion of risk and
  risk management, and proper intermediate
  concepts, should help to formulate approaches and
  to provide a guide for action and intervention.
• Concepts alone do not define the most appropriate
  instruments and actions to implement they do,
  however, shape them and facilitate identification
  of relevant parameters for intervention.

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Disaster Risk A Basic Definition

• The probability of future damage and loss
  reaching proportions that outstrip the
  independent capabilities for response and
  recovery of the social unit affected.
• Placing the emphasis on risk facilitates
  approaching the problem from the standpoint of a
  process and NOT an end product, i.e., disaster.

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DISASTER RISK Management

• A complex social process through which society
  attempts to consciously reduce the levels of
  disaster risk and control the advent of new risk
  in the future.

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Characteristics of Disaster Risk and its
Significance Concerning Risk Management

• DISASTER RISK is characterised by the following
  issues and implications relating to intervention,
  type and organisation

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DISASTER RISK

• A latent condition representing potential harm
  in the future
• Implies that risk may be anticipated, allowing
  society to intervene ahead of time with
  prevention, mitigation, reduction and control or
  preparation measures

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DISASTER RISK

• Exists because an interaction and relationship
  exists between physical hazard factors and human
  vulnerability in certain defined spaces or
  territories and affecting different social groups
  
• This means that risk may be reduced or
  controlled
• By controlling the degrees of exposure of the
  society
• By avoiding the transformation of natural
  resources into hazards through processes of
  environmental deterioration
• By limiting exposure of the society to physical
  phenomena by means of structures to hold them
  back (dikes, terracing, walls)
• By increasing the resilience of production
  systems of the society vis-à-vis physical
  phenomena
• By lowering the vulnerability of society in its
  various structural dimensions.
• By anticipating future risk and by controlling
  its development through regulation (prospective
  management)

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DISASTER RISK

• Risk is invariably a social construction, the
  result of determined and changing social
  processes that chiefly derive from styles and
  models of development and different processes of
  social and economic transformation.
• With regard to vulnerability, it is definitely a
  social construction.
• Purely anthropic and socio-natural threats are
  clearly the product of society itself.
• Natural threats are considered a social
  construction because the transformation of a
  possible physical phenomenon into a threat to
  society is determined by the level of exposure
  and vulnerability of the society.

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DISASTER RISK

• Risk seen as a social construction means that
• Society is in a position to deconstruct and to
  control what it constructs.
• Inasmuch as risk is the result of social and
  economic processes linked to development models
  and styles, reduction and control can only be
  successful if risk management is viewed as a
  component of sectoral, territorial, development,
  environment and sustainability management and
  planning.
• Risk may be identified with the results of the
  actions of given social actors. Consequently,
  risk management is not possible without the
  collaboration of these actors and mechanisms to
  control their detrimental actions.

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DISASTER RISK

• Risk, and the hazards and vulnerabilities that
  explain it, are dynamic and changeable. Change
  can be slow and almost imperceptible, occurring
  over the short term or quickly and even abruptly
  or violently both of these situations are due to
  changes in the physical environment and in social
  and economic processes. These various states of
  disaster risk allow for discussion of a risk
  continuum (as opposed to a disaster cycle) in
  which three basic risk categories and conditions
  that are important to the subject of risk
  management may be identified
• Primary or structural risk
• Derived, secondary or circumstantial risk
• Reconstructed or extended risk
• Each successive state is built upon, maintains
  and expands upon the conditions present in the
  preceding state. Hence, the continuum is not only
  expressed in the changes of state but also in the
  relationship between current and preceding
  states.

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DISASTER RISK

• The significance of the dynamic and changing
  nature of risk for management practice is as
  follows
• The scenario of risk, hazard and vulnerability
  factors constantly change and cannot be captured
  in a snap-shot image. This means that data must
  be updated regularly through constant monitoring
  and analysis of the environment and society. It
  also means that the task of putting together risk
  scenarios and maps and processes of permanent
  analysis calls for decentralisation and
  participation of the subjects of risk, their
  organisations, and other regional, local or
  community structures.
• Risk Management as an organised,
  institutionalised practice and uses the risk
  continuum as a point of reference. Thus,
  Management constitutes a comprehensive,
  transversal practice and philosophy, envisaging
  what has been traditionally referred to as
  disaster prevention, mitigation and preparation,
  as well as emergency response, rehabilitation and
  reconstruction.

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DISASTER RISK

• Risk Management requires organisational and
  institutional structures that bring together
  different actors and capacities, invariably
  taking development as their principal point of
  reference. It requires acknowledgement of the
  differentiated importance wielded by experts in
  development and in the humanitarian response to
  disaster.

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DISASTER RISK

• Risk may be assessed objectively, but it may also
  de assessed subjectively. This subjectivity
  refers to the different ways in which the
  subjects of risk perceive and measure risk, their
  notions on acceptable risk, their priorities with
  regard to diverse risk contexts and their
  decisions as regards risk reduction

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DISASTER RISK

• In practice, this means that
• In risk management, the real and full
  participation of the subjects of risk is
  indispensable.
• Often, those subject to risk, particularly the
  poor, judge disaster risk in the light of the
  current, permanent conditions of their own
  existence. This means that risk management must
  be implemented as a practice within the framework
  of development management actions so that it is
  not relegated, ignored or marginalised.
• The objectives of primary risk reduction
  management are most successfully and permanently
  achieved if management is carried out within the
  framework of pre-existing sectorial and
  territorial development organisations and
  institutions and not by institutions created
  specifically to promote risk management.

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DISASTER RISK

• 6. Disaster risk is most precisely measured and
  perceived at microsocial and territorial levels.
• This means that
• A large scale disaster is actually a series of
  local, community, family and personal disasters
• Properly gauging risk entails closer local
  involvement and participation
• Risk awareness is expressed at the microsocial
  and territorial level, and this is often where
  concerns tend to arise as well as intentions to
  reduce and control it

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DISASTER RISK

• Local risk management has been established as an
  option that is genuine, necessary and valid.
  Local management requires
• The participation of local actors
• Their appropriation of management
• The backing of external actors in the form of
  support and promotion
• The need for local organisational-institutional
  structures
• The pursuit of sustainability resulting from
  participation, appropriation and the
  consolidation of local structures

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DISASTER RISK

• THE LOCAL SPHERE
• Discourse about the local sphere has led to
  problems due to lack of definition and to the
  diversity of disciplinary concepts with respect
  to this issue. Moreover, there is a trend toward
  reducing the scope of the local sphere to the
  municipal level.
• There are several important points that should
  be considered concerning this issue

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DISASTER RISK

• First. To begin with, it is crucial for there to
  be a subnational and subregional management
  level.
• Second. The most appropriate level of
  intervention refers to what can be termed risk
  territories, where the following exists
• A certain homogeneity in development conditions
  and processes.
• A certain level of homogeneity as regards the
  types of risk scenario
• Groups of social actors with a sense of
  territorial belonging and close, conflicting or
  collaborative relations

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DISASTER RISK

• .
• Third. These territories can actually be smaller
  than a municipality, span municipal boundaries
  or, in a very limited number of cases, coincide
  with municipal boundaries.

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DISASTER RISK

• Fifth. If the municipality becomes the
  predominant expression of the local sphere, it is
  not because this is the only option, but, rather,
  because
• Management requires permanent, consolidated and
  sustainable organisational-institutional
  structures.
• The municipality is a truly practical option
  given its importance in promoting local
  development, consolidating decentralisation,
  negotiating and coordinating with other social
  actors and, finally, because of its authority to
  regulate and control local development and land
  use.

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DISASTER RISK

• Sixth. This does not mean that the municipality
  is the only possible option, but it is the most
  prevalent, conspicuous and permanent one and, in
  principle, it wields the highest degree of
  legitimacy.
• Seventh. The local sphere must also coordinate
  and be built upon other hierarchically lower
  territorial and social levels, such as the
  sub-local level, the town, the community and even
  the family.

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DISASTER RISK

• 7. Risk is best represented and is materialized
  at the microsocial and territorial levels.
  Nevertheless, its causes cannot be restricted to
  these levels alone. Local risk is also the
  result of social processes and actors that are
  extra-local, regional, national and even
  international.
• This means that

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DISASTER RISK

• Local management cannot be conducted autonomously
  and requires relations, concertation,
  coordination and management with other
  territorial levels which may include
• Hydrographical basins
• Economic, natural, development-based regions, and
  the like
• Municipal associations
• Local management requires the promotion of
  capacities for negotiation and concertation with
  internal and external actors in the search for
  their backing and collaboration.

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DISASTER RISK

• 8. Disaster risk is a component or dimension of
  global risk, which has other dimensions and
  determining factors. Moreover, disaster risk is
  often built upon other manifestations of risk,
  particularly what could be termed every day or
  chronic risk. This notion refers to risks
  particularly faced by the poor in their daily
  lives (unemployment, lack of income,
  malnutrition, proneness to illness, social and
  domestic violence, etc.).

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DISASTER RISK

• This chronic risk is
• A reflection and component of the definition of
  underdevelopment, poverty and the lack of
  sustainability
• A condition that significantly contributes to the
  social construction of disaster risk, hazards and
  vulnerabilities
• An important point to consider and a component of
  the disaster risk construction process for
  hundreds of millions of people worldwide

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DISASTER RISK

• Implications of these considerations for
  DISASTER risk management
• Management must take place within a framework
  that TAKES CLOSELY INTO ACCOUNT the CHRONIC risk
  and poverty conditions of the population.
• Given the high priority assigned by the
  population to THE REDUCTION OF CHRONIC risk, and
  considering their own capacities for survival and
  adaptation, disaster risk management must be
  closely associated with chronic risk and the
  mechanisms used by the population to deal with it
  should be used as a fundamental point of
  reference.
• Risk management is a parameter and component of
  development, environmental and global human
  security management and planning and essential
  to achieving sustainability.

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DISASTER RISK

• 9. Conclusions
• At every aspect and level, disaster risk
  management cannot be successfully achieved
  without
• A close relationship with development and
  development management
• Being viewed as a process and not a product
• Participation of and appropriation by individuals
  subject to risk and their organisations, and the
  creation of permanent, sustainable
  organisational-institutional structures
• Integration of social actors from various
  different territorial levels
• Being viewed as a transversal, comprehensive
  phenomenon
• Pursuing temporal and territorial sustainability