Better laws, safer communities? Emerging themes on how legislation can support disaster risk reduction (May 2013)
The report presents the emerging themes on legislation and DRR based on (i) 24 desk surveys of national laws that map existing areas of coverage in national legislation; and (ii) 9 country in-depth case studies that examine stakeholder perceptions of domestic legislative systems and their implementation.
The studies take as a point of departure that regulatory frameworks for DRR cut across the usual categories of sectoral regulation, such as emergency response, building & construction, environmental management, development planning, or the more recent ‘sector’ of climate change adaptation. In other words, DRR legislation is an ensemble of laws and rules, not all of which refer directly to disasters. Moreover,
the country case studies look not only at national legislation but also at provincial and local laws and rule-making.