A Participatory Management Model for Flood-Risk Communication (PMMFRC) in Davao City, Philippines

Abstract

Vulnerable communities of Davao City, Southern Philippines has experienced flooding that leads to catastrophic effects costing damage to properties and loss of lives. Communities need to build its resiliency to respond to flooding and mitigate its negative impacts. Policy makers and leaders need to regularly review and update its existing policies to address gaps and promote effective community engagement. This paper highlights the development of the communication management framework based on the results from the qualitative approaches of document analysis, examination of relevant secondary data and the key informant interviews conducted among the heads and representatives of the identified agencies involved in the risk reduction and disaster management of the city. Results of the study revealed that Davao City implements a top-down communication system for risk reduction management which has little or no room for transactional interaction between the source of the message and the local communities. Messages have been found to be unfiltered and interoperability mechanism has been found only at the level of the implementing agencies. The study, therefore, proposed a participatory management model for flood-risk communication (PMMFRC) for flood-vulnerable communities towards risk reduction.