Wednesday, April 23, 2008

ALNAP/Provention: Flood disasters: Learning from previous relief and recovery operations

This briefing paper provides a synthesis of and introduction to key lessons from evaluations1 of relief and recovery/humanitarian response to flooding in the last 20 years from Africa, Asia and the Americas. The paper is intended for people working in relief and recovery operations for floods – those who have to decide if, when and how to intervene. Selected reading references are mentioned after each of the issues discussed and a listing of key resources and a bibliography of the evaluations used are included at the end of the paper.
Download the paper from the ALNAP website.
The paper covers lessons for the following key topics which may be relevant in various ways and at different times for flood preparedness, relief and recovery:

Lesson 1 – Flood risk reduction (p. 2)
Lesson 2 – Building ownership and engaging with local capacity (p. 5)
Lesson 3 – Needs assessment (p. 5)
Lesson 4 – Targeting and monitoring (p. 7)
Lesson 5 – Livelihoods recovery (p. 7)
Lesson 6 – Local economy and market (p. 9)
Lesson 7 – Water, sanitation and health (p. 9)
Lesson 8 – Shelter and housing (p. 11)
Lesson 9 – Managing nationwide response and coordination (p. 12)

In this paper the term ‘flood(s)’ is used to refer to flood as a hazard or phenomenon. ‘Flooding’ refers to the disastrous impact of the flood. Many of the lessons presented in the paper can reasonably be applied to hazards in general, however others are flood-specific.

While the paper focuses on relief and recovery, it starts with risk reduction and lessons for incorporating flood prevention and preparedness activities to avoid ‘vicious spirals’ in disaster risk and development failure (DFID, 2005).

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