This publication aims to provide guidance on good practice relating to inclusive community-based disaster risk reduction, drawing on the experience of The Myanmar Consortium for Community Resilience (MCCR).
The guidance is based on an analysis of project documentation and inputs on what worked well and why, some of the challenges faced, and good practice recommendations from over 180 community members, government officials and project staff consulted. They cover:
- Enhancing awareness, knowledge and understanding
- Promoting and facilitating inclusion in decision-making and other processes
- Promoting collaboration and cooperation among and between stakeholders
- Ensuring sustainability of project outcomes.
The recommendations highlight the importance of getting to know the community and allocating sufficient human, technical and financial resources, as well as adequate time, to embed DRR-related work and foster a “culture of safety”. They also point to the need to ensure DRR practitioners are fully equipped with the right attitude, knowledge, skills and understanding of DRR and broader community development processes to support communities to strengthen their own resilience to disasters. Finally, the recommendations and accompanying examples show a clear preference for interactive, practical and participatory approaches, as opposed to theory-based, classroom learning approaches. Whilst some of these considerations may seem logical, experience shows that they can easily be overlooked when applying standard, non-contextualised approaches or in the rush to complete the full community-based DRR project cycle within tight donor-led timeframes.
