Inputs for Post 2015 Framework for DRR (HFA2)
from the Asia Pacific Region
Key Area 1: Building Community Resilience
Example of Good Practice – IFRC Asia Pacific Zone Contribution
Institutionalizing Community Resilience Approaches in the Asia-Pacific Region
Theme
Developing long-term mechanisms to strengthen community resilience
Abstract
This good practice highlights how the Red Cross and Red Crescent has integrated Community
Resilience approaches from the global to local level operations in the Asia-Pacific region, in order to
apply a more holistic approach in addressing both development problems and needs, as well as risks
and opportunities faced by communities.
Context
Having established itself as a key humanitarian actor across 187 nations, the Red Cross and Red
Crescent recognised that due to its permanent presence within these both at the national and local
level, not only during disasters, but also beforehand and long afterwards, that they were well placed to
contribute to global and local sustainable development efforts.
Thus, the 1980s saw a shift in programming to include development-focused implementation in Asia
and other regions with national and sub-national chapters providing a large and long-running range of
needed local and national services in relation to disasters, health, and social protection. This included
initiatives on disease prevention and health promotion, water and sanitation, blood donor recruitment,
food and nutrition, disaster preparedness, response, and recovery, social assistance, as well as
protection for poor, vulnerable, and marginalised groups through promoting social inclusion, and a
culture of non-violence and peace. These served the sole and common purpose to prevent and
reduce the underlying causes of vulnerability.
To meet these ambitious and diverse services, operations focused on addressing the needs through
sector-based approaches. In addition, its humanitarian work was not viewed as being closely linked
with development-related implementation. Working in this manner lead to isolated project driven
outcomes that did not effectively contribute to the overall goal of building safe and resilient
communities.
This siloed approach to community resilience continued despite the attempts to move the agenda
towards an integrated approach. In 1999, a new disaster preparedness policy recognized links
between emergency, response, recovery and development. Risk reduction was recognized as an
essential condition for sustainable development in 2002, and DRR was acknowledged as a key in
achieving the goals of Strategy 2010. At the programme level, integration of main IFRC technical
areas (disaster management and preparedness, organizational development and health) was
discussed but not implemented.
How
the The Red Cross Red Crescent’s approach to community resilience began in 2004 when it placed the
problem
was focus if its’ Annual World Disaster Report on community resilience. In 2007, it established the Global
addressed?
Alliance for DRR comprised of disaster management, and disaster preparedness and risk reduction
personnel. The Global Alliance developed a Framework for Community Safety and Resilience with a
focus on disaster risk reduction in 2008. The goal of the document was to establish a foundation on
which all Red Cross Red Crescent programmes, projects and interventions in DRR and all actions,
which contribute to the building of safe and resilient communities, could be created, developed and
sustained in a systematic manner. It also identified the key characteristics of resilient communities.
This was shared throughout the network, and a mechanism was established to receive and ensure
that feedback was incorporated in its development.
In the adoption of the Framework within targeted countries, new insights into the key characteristics of
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resilient communities were captured, along with how this could be strengthened, and how resilience
can be measured. One example of new learning was derived from a review of Red Cross Red
Crescent activities in China, Myanmar and Nepal in 2012 that revealed the important role of social
capital in reinforcing community resilience. Challenges were also encountered in the Framework
having a sole focus on addressing disaster risks.
These new learnings are being applied in the revision of the Framework for Community Resilience in
2013, where key characteristics are being broadened to include wider risks faced by communities,
including health, livelihoods, environment and social protection, along with a clearer definitions of
resilience and communities. The Framework identifies main actions to strengthen community
resilience and the provision of key guiding questions to ensure that these main actions are integrated
into community programmes. It also urges all sectors to contribute to building community resilience.
Integration is viewed as a stepping-stone to build community resilience.
Results
The results of the global effort were reflected as introduction of resilience units in IFRC regional
offices in 2011. They united main technical sectors under a resilience head encouraging integrated
programming and joint funding. Several national societies throughout the zone started implementing
integrated community based programming. Resilience is seen as the goal, consisting on integrated,
holistic programmes, which can have very specialized sectoral components.
At regional level, key elements of the Framework were contextualized into one specifically for DRR in
South-East Asia by the Regional Disaster Committee in 2010 to provide more guidance to National
chapters in the region. This Framework outlined expected outcomes for each of the key elements,
along with proposed activities, indicators and countries that had expressed interested in each
outcome. In 2013 national societies’ heads of disaster management, organizational development and
health formed a joint Community Safety and Resilience Forum to identify common areas of
intervention through cross-sectoral planning resulting in development of a regional Road Map.
At national level, thematic seminars for integration were conducted in several Red Cross Societies in
Southeast Asia, bringing together management and staff from all sectors to jointly discuss how to
work together on integrated, cross-sectoral programming addressing community needs in a holistic
manner.
At community level, multi-sectoral assessment field schools were conducted in South, South-East,
and East Asia for 148 participants from nine rural and urban communities from 20 countries between
2010-2012. The sessions developed greater recognition on linkages between technical areas in risk
reduction. Participatory community assessment was found to be an open way to identify wide range of
issues in the communities across a number of sectors to support resilience building.
In country-level the Red Cross Red Crescent national societies have adopted the Framework in
varying forms of integrated programming, examples of which are presented below.
Viet Nam is one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world and the impact of climate change is
likely to increase in the coming years, especially with 70 per cent of its population estimated to be
exposed to risks from natural hazards. Health risks in Viet Nam are compounded by the impacts of
climate change, According to data available in 2011 from the National Hospital of Tropical Diseases
(NHTD), the incidence of vector-borne and water-borne diseases has increased five-fold, particularly
in the southern and central regions of Viet Nam. Specifically, the data shows a five-fold increase in
cases of dengue fever from 2000 to 2010, as well as an increase in cholera outbreaks in recent years.
While the impact of climate change on health is not specifically researched, operational research
conducted by the IFRC and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre on dengue in Viet Nam has
revealed that the pattern of the disease is changing. Cases of dengue are now reported in areas
where it has never been present, while other areas are now experiencing exposure all year rather
than only during the rainy season.
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In support of building community resilience and specifically ensuring a healthy lifestyle, the Viet Nam
Red Cross has advanced its community based health programing to respond to the needs of climate
change-sensitive diseases including dengue and malaria. The national society has undertaken
extensive public awareness campaigns including the large scale distributed of leaflets to households
and to school students, public notices on the symptoms of dengue and explained how individuals can
prevent mosquitos from breeding around their houses.
The Sri Lanka Red Cross is undertaking an Integrated Programme for Community Resilience (IPCR)
initiative that aims to comprehensively address the gaps and challenges encountered by communities.
The programme covers several aspects of resilience - disaster risks, health, livelihood, climate
change adaptation - in a holistic way in 65 communities, with a target to expand this to 100
communities in 2015. The tools from community-based disaster risk management (CBDRM) and
community-based health and first aid in action (CBHFA) are used to address problems identified by
the communities in including access to safe water, sanitation, livelihoods and primary health care
services, reinforcement of river embankments and drainage systems, strengthening community
preparedness and response capacities via the prepositioning of contingency stocks and first aid
training.
In early 2014 the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Red Cross conducted a joint
Vulnerability and Capacity assessment (VCA) in 15 villages with a joint team of disaster risk reduction,
health and water and sanitation specialists to come up with harmonized plan of implementation. The
national society has decided to go for integrated approach in their community based programming to
increase resilience.
In Indonesia, the Indonesian Red Cross identified health and disaster risks in 30 villages in CentralJava through secondary data analysis and discussions with local authorities and the national society
branch in 2012. Eight topics were identified as priorities. A baseline assessment was then carried out
in 30 villages using mobile-phone based survey on these topics to assess the knowledge and practice
level. The Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment (VCA) fine-tuned the capacity of the community to
implement integrated programming targeting e.g. hypertension, diarrheal diseases, floods and
landslides.
In Myanmar, the Myanmar Red Cross’s Urban Disaster Risk Reduction (UDRR) project started in in
Yangon with a multi-sector assessment in 2013. It identified the main risks in the urban areas to be
high prevalence of fire outbreaks, poor hygiene and sanitation conditions, increased rates of TB/HIV,
malaria and dengue and poor infrastructure and the project will address priority areas across the
sectors.
It is well understood that strengthening resilience does not happen overnight and requires long-term
engagement and investment. A significant paradigm shift from standalone sector programing to multisector (integrated) programing happened within the Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS) as an
approach towards community resilience, during last couple of years.
After a series of consultations with National and Provincial technical colleagues from PRCS, IFRC and
in country movement partners and building comparisons of different community based programs like
Community Based Disaster Risk Reduction (CBDRR), Community Based Health and First Aid
(CBHFA), and Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation (PHAST), an integrated
community based programing approach was adopted.
A common language/terms/acronyms was agreed for common understanding and ownership in multi
sectors. A Steering Committee was established with technical colleagues from all the sectors for
collective action, greater inclusion and stronger linkages among them instead of handling it through a
single department/program.
This resulted in the development of a multi sectorial Integrated Community Based Risk Reduction
(ICBRR) pilot Program (2013-2016) to achieve resilience at community level as a broader
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development agenda.
To understand the diverse underlying causes of vulnerability and disasters, existing programs
assessment and planning tools were harmonised/contextualised into a holistic assessment for
planning and implementation across various sectors or departments.
IRP was one of the learning experiences towards integrated programing. In spite of all the challenges,
constraints and evaluation findings, it not only built capacity on integrated programing approaches but
also provided the foundation stone to further develop a longer term resilience building programme.
The main learning from the integrated programming process in Nepal Red Cross Society has been
to ensure joint assessment and plan of action from the initial phase throughout programme
implementation. The national society supports integration as an approach for program harmonization,
not structural change because the technical competencies still need to be strongly represented.
Implementation does not need to happen hand-in-hand, for example hardware like water installations,
latrine construction or building a community shelter need different skill sets than interacting with the
community for behavior change.
Measuring
success
Preliminary success can be derived from the feedback received from the multi-sectoral field schools
that were held in Myanmar. When the participants reflected on their learning, they referred to
elements of integration such as having their awareness raised in all technical areas, learning and
identifying problems holistically, organizing activities within the community to address these problems
and connecting with external actors to access resources that they lacked.
The integrated community based resilience programmes implemented currently are still in their early
years and no end-line surveys have been conducted to see the impact of the programming.
A more structured approach to measuring the impact of the Framework for Community Resilience is
currently being developed, and should soon be publically available.
Relevance
HFA1
to The results contribute to HFA1 progress in countries where the Framework has been tested through
introducing a systematic approach through which countries can prevent and reduce underlying causes
of vulnerability. This ensures that DRR interventions are more relevant and effective as they are
integrated within wider development-focused programming at the community level.
It also contributes to global development goals at the community level through two other interconnected areas, by enhancing civil society capacity to build resilience communities, and developing
mindsets that promote societal and personal transformation.
As a global instrument to reduce disaster risks, the HFA1 played a role in enabling this initiative by
focusing on the building the resilience of nations and communities to disasters as its overarching goal.
The focus on disaster risk reduction also contributed to some extent on strengthening the
connectedness between preparedness relief, recovery and longer-term development.
Potential
replication
for This initiative has a huge potential for replication. However, it requires a genuine and concerted effort
of DRR practitioners and proponents within countries and institutions to use disaster risk reduction as
a means to strengthen the resilience of communities in which they work.
The lessons learnt and key elements of success are reflected in the following guidelines for
replication:
1. Establish a multi-sectoral consultative mechanism to come to a coherent understanding of and
approach to community resilience, and to guide its implementation within pilot locations
2. Recognise that the concept of resilience continues to evolve dynamically and that new learning
and approaches on how to improve and scale up it up need to be documented
3. Ensure that the community resilience is defined broadly enough so that it can be applied across a
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multitude of sectoral and temporal contexts
4. Develop guidelines to measure the outcomes of community resilience, along with indicators to
measure it, and
5. Test and expand the understanding and approach for use in other sectors.
Contact
Nelson Castano H.
Head of Disaster Management Unit
Asia Pacific Zone Office
Indira Kulenovic
Coordinator/Head of Community Safety and
Resilience Unit
Southeast Asia regional delegation
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
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