Capacity for Managing Disasters

Abstract

Capacity for managing and preventing disasters depends upon how disasters are defined or understood. Until the nineteenth century, the capacity to manage disasters was limited to the ability to undertake relief and rescue operations. Beginning in the early 1900s, social scientists laid a foundation for understanding disasters as the product of natural and social forces. Based on this understanding, the capacity to manage "disaster risk" required the ability to develop good models of disaster risk, planning to mitigate known disaster risks, and transferring risk of economic losses from likely disasters along with the ability to be prepared for disasters. However, even with the new understanding and increased efforts associated with disaster response and mitigation, monetary losses from disasters are increased globally. Social scientists now believe that we live in a "risk society" where "industrial-technical-scientific projects" produce unintended risks that are incalculable, uninsurable, and uncontrollable. The capacity to manage disasters now requires an ability to learn, internalize and make change, manage information flow and exchange, ensure flexibility and adaptability in the structure and functions of organizations, and coordinate work with multiple agencies and units to achieve a common purpose. This chapter provides a strong theoretical basis of what capacities are needed for managing disasters and who needs these capacities. This chapter is divided into four sections: (i) the need for capacity development in disaster risk management, (ii) key concepts, (iii) historical evolution of the field and where it is heading, and (iv) what and whose capacity.