Policy making after disasters. Helping regions become resilient: The case of post-earthquake Abruzzo

Posted on: 11 March 2013
By: mackene
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This report suggests that the Abruzzo region of Italy should focus on endogenous resources to build its long-term development strategy and, at the same time, to increase the external openness of the regional system to attract more entrepreneurs, students, foreigners and external capital, following the earthquake of 2009. The issues raised in the report can help other governments to rethink regional policy, for both regions vulnerable to natural disasters and for those facing long-term decline. As such, eight guiding recommendations for building resilient regions after a disaster are drawn. These guiding recommendations can provide a framework for policy making in other OECD regions.

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The economics of climate resilience

Posted on: 11 March 2013
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The Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has been developing a National Adaptation Programme (NAP) to address the issues that were uncovered in the UK-wide climate change risk assessment (CCRA) that was released last year. This report has been released in support of the NAP. The CCRA is the first ever comprehensive assessment of potential risks and opportunities for the UK arising from climate change. The ground-breaking 2000 page report identified climate risks to 11 key areas ranging from agriculture to tourism.

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New approaches to promoting flexible and forward-looking decision making

Posted on: 28 February 2013
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Recent emphasis on promoting a ‘resilience approach’ to programming has resulted in calls for more longer-term objectives and deliverables, greater flexibility in planning processes, as well as better collaboration and coordination amongst key development actors. Drawing on insights from complexity science, this paper describes what processes are needed to promote Flexible and Forward-looking Decision Making (FFDM). More specifically, the paper proposes a coupled game and reflection based approach. This looks to capitalise on the ability of serious games to encourage experiential learning, as well as ensuring that enough time is provided to reflect on how key components of the game relate to the ‘real-world’. It also allows participants to identify their own routes forward for improving decision-making processes.

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Building resilience for adaptation to climate change in the agriculture sector. Rome, 23-24 April 2012

Posted on: 18 February 2013
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This workshop considered the various types of risks to which agriculture is prone, considered the impact that climate change is expected to have on them, and discussed various risk management strategies, depending on types of risks, and the country and region in question. This two-day workshop consisted of four sessions including setting the scene, types of risks and risk management, case studies and, finally, tools, policies and institutions. A report of proceedings and presentations are available online.

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Global Risks 2013

Posted on: 14 February 2013
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The World Economic Forum is now in its eighth year of publishing the Global Risks report. The purpose of the current edition is twofold. First, it aims to show how experts from around the world, from different backgrounds, currently perceive the risks that the world is likely to face over the next decade. To capture these opinions, a survey was carried out, interviews were conducted with specialists in different fields, and a series of workshops and conference sessions were held with expert groups to interpret the research findings and to work out the three risk cases developed in the report. Second, with this report the World Economic Forum aims to continue to raise awareness about global risks, to stimulate thinking about how risks can be factored into strategy development, and to challenge global leaders to improve how they approach global risks.

This year’s Special Report examines the increasingly important issue of building national resilience to global risks. It introduces qualitative and quantitative indicators to assess overall national resilience to global risks by looking at five national-level subsystems (economic, environmental, governance, infrastructure and social) through the lens of five components: robustness, redundancy, resourcefulness, response and recovery. The aim is to develop a future diagnostic report to enable decision-makers to track progress in building national resilience and possibly identify where further investments are needed.

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Reality, resources, resilience: Regeneration in a recession

Posted on: 13 February 2013
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This paper, from Scotland’s Independent Regeneration Network (SURF), looks at how the recession is impacting upon disadvantaged communities in Scotland. It summarises experience and practical initiatives in two contrasting case study neighbourhoods, exploring how communities and partner agencies are responding, and asks what opportunities are presented by the distinct Scottish policy context.

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Investing in resilience: Ensuring a disaster-resistant future

Posted on: 8 February 2013
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A new report published by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) says that human and financial losses from natural disasters in Asia and the Pacific continue to grow. Yet, reducing such losses is possible through investments in risk assessment, risk reduction and residual risk management. The appropriate use of existing instruments and mechanisms in the legislative, regulatory, policy, planning, institutional, financial, and capacity-building arenas can increase resilience. Moreover, there is increasing awareness from decision makers of the need to build partnerships with all levels of society along with close cooperation with the international community. Disaster resilience is increasingly viewed as a critical component of efforts to achieve sustainable socioeconomic development and poverty reduction. In the context of increasing exposure and vulnerability to meteorological, hydrological and climate-related hazards associated with a changing climate, climate change adaptation also need to be combined with actions to strengthen disaster resilience under a single framework. This report contains an extensive bibliography.

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3 ways to build cities that withstand earthquakes and superstorms

Posted on: 31 January 2013
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The author argues that making our cities resilient to climate change means a shift away from the lowest-bid mentality and toward a model of shared risk.

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Cities of tomorrow, action today. Copenhagen, 3-5 December 2012

Posted on: 24 January 2013
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URBACT’s Annual Conference considered the following topics: cohesive and sustainable cities; creating a resilient and inclusive economy; and  governance. Presentations and reports are available online.

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Toward Resilience: A Guide to Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation

Posted on: 21 January 2013
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A group of development organisations have released a new introductory guide to help NGOs working in the development sector understand and integrate climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction (DRR) into their project planning and programme cycle management. It is designed to be used as a practical resource for staff of development and humanitarian organizations working with people whose livelihoods and rights are threatened by disasters and climate change.

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