This Good Practice Review identifies and discusses the principles and practice of disaster risk reduction (DRR), drawing on experiences from around the world. It gives guidance on the main issues that should be taken into consideration when carrying out projects and programmes, and ways of addressing these issues in practice. DRR is a wide-ranging field of activity, as the following pages show, and each of the 18 chapters addresses a specific theme.

The book is intended primarily for practitioners, principally project planners and managers already working in the DRR field or planning to undertake DRR initiatives, mainly at sub-national and local levels. Some of these practitioners will be based in specialist DRR organisations, but many will be engaged in other development or humanitarian work, and seeking to incorporate DRR into their activities more effectively. They may be working in NGOs, local government, community organisations or other types of organisation, for there are many different stakeholders in DRR.

The Good Practice Review is above all a practical document, but it is not a manual. Its emphasis is on the process of planning and implementing risk reduction initiatives, looking at key issues and decision points. The descriptions and discussions are supported by case studies, which aim to give a sense of the range and diversity of the practical approaches that can be used.

It is difficult to present a balanced coverage of such a broad and diverse subject, and inevitably there are gaps. However, there is now far more evidence and literature on DRR than there was a decade ago when the first edition of this book was published – a good indication of how much progress has been made in recent years – and as a result we know a great deal more about good practice in a wide range of fields. Nevertheless, there is still much that we do not fully understand, and a lot of good practice remains undocumented or unpublished.

Lasting protection against disasters will not be attained overnight: it is a long-term goal to be achieved through a continuous process of improvement, which requires that lessons are learnt and shared. This book is a small contribution to that process.

Publication by Humanitarian Practice Network 

Chapter List:

Chapter 1 Introduction: The Disaster Challenge, Disasters Explained, Disaster Risk Reduction, DRR and Climate Change Adaptation, Resilience

Chapter 2 Insitutionalizing DRR within Organizations: Policies and Strategies, Planning and Operational Guidelines, Staff Capacity, Knowledge-sharing, Business Continuity, Monitoring and Evaluating Organizational Mainstreaming

Chapter 3 Project Planning: The Project Cycle, Project Planning, Risk Assessment, Hazards Assessment, Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment

Chapter 4 Partnerships, Goverance and Stakeholders: Creating Partnerships, Governance, Decentralization, Widening Civil Society Participation, Networks, Private Sector Partnerships, Military Involvement in Disaster Reduction, Regional and International Collaboration

Chapter 5 Inclusion: Gender, Older People, Children and Young People, Disability, Minorities

Chapter 6 Communities and Participation: Communities and Community Action, Inclusion and Expectations, Facilitating CBDRM, Stakeholder Relationships, Scaling up and Sustainability, Sustainability and External Inputs, Monitoring and Evaluation

Chapter 7 Indigenous Knowledge and Coping Strategies: Forms of Coping, Limitations of Coping Strategies

Chapter 8 Communities and Technology-Choice and Innovation: Appropriate Technology, Green Engineering and Ecosystems, Community Infrastructure and lifelines, Information and Communications Technologies, Ownership, Control and Participation

Chapter 9 Liveihoods and DRR: Disaster Risk Reduction and Livelihoods, Types of Intervention, Sustainable Livelihoods Approaches, Issues to Consider in Livelihoods-centered DRR, Social Protection and Safety Nets

Chapter 10 Communications, Information and Education: Principles of Good Communication, Communication Strategies, Communication Methods, Managing Information, Evaluating Impact, Schools, Disaster Education and School Safety

Chapter 11 Policy, Regulation, Accountability and Advocacy: Policies and Regulations, Accountability-General Prinicples and Approaches, DRR Monitorying Frameworks and the enabling environment, Accountability methods

Chapter 12 Financial Mechanisms and Services for Risk Reduction: Government and International Finance for DRR, Micro-credit and Micro-Finance, Cash Transfers and Remittances, Disaster Insurance

Chapter 13 Managing Urban Risk: Urban Hazards and Risks, Urban Vulnerability, Urban Disaster Risk Reduction-Constraints and Opportunities, Relocation and Avoiding Hazardous Areas, Urban Food Security

Chapter 14 Drought, Food Security and Famine: Understanding Food Security, Coping with Food Insecurity and Famine, Promoting Food Security, Monitoring and Warning Systems

Chapter 15 DRR, Social Crisis and Conflict: Implementing disaster risk reduction in insecure contexts, Conflict Sensitivity, Situation Analysis, Communities, Local Institutions and Livelihoods

Chapter 16 Preparing for Disasters and Emergencies: Plans and Planning, Resourcse, Protecting Assets, Forcasting and Warning, Evacuation and Emergency Shelter

Chapter 17 Risk Reduction After Diaster: Opportunities, Issues, and Challenges, Recovery Interventions and DRR

Chapter 18 Monitoring and Evalucation: Planning and Operation, Sustainability and Theory of Change, Accountability and Participation, Assessment Teams, Baseline Data, Indicators, Outputs or Impact?, Indentifying cause-effect links, Cost-benefit Anaysis, Using M&E Findings

Link to web-based book
http://goodpracticereview.org/9/