Investigating the Practice of Disaster Risk Reduction Mainstreaming into Development : the Experience of a Development Organization

Abstract

The understanding of development and disaster nexus has enforced the international community to think and act differently. Disaster risk reduction mainstreaming has been embraced as one of our best approach for sustainable development and has been consistently featured in international discussions. Mainstreaming in general is known to be a complex process requiring a set of institutional arrangements. The effort to mainstream disaster risk reduction is largely focused on the national government and sectoral issues. There is a gap of knowledge and understanding of how does a development organization experience and approach disaster risk reduction mainstreaming into their work, despite being a prominent actor in development initiative. This study attempts to fill this gap through a case study of World Vision Indonesia by investigating to the progress to disaster risk reduction mainstreaming. In doing so, this study applies a tool of mainstreaming disaster risk reduction for development organization focusing on six key areas: Policy, Strategy, Project Cycle Management, Geographical Planning, Relations and Institutional Capacity. The study relies on two combined data collection method; semi-structured interviews and document analysis. Results indicate that WVI’s progress to disaster risk reduction mainstreaming is varied across key areas. While there is a strong evidence of progressive advancement due to the strategic top-down approach, there is still room for improvement, in particular regarding the institutional capacity.

Popular Abstract

There seems to be an absolute agreement that mainstreaming disaster risk reduction into development policies, planning and programming is imperative due to the dynamic relationship between disaster risks and development. That being said, it remains an arduous task due to the complex process of mainstreaming which requires an institutionalization of the cross-cutting issue into the existing structures and cultures to avoid an “add-on” approach. The international effort focusing on disaster risk reduction mainstreaming is countless, many of which centered on the government as the primary actor and sector-specific intervention, such as agriculture, urban planning, and education. In addition to this, it has been long embraced that the experience of DRR mainstreaming varies from one country to another and from one organization to another. There is a need to examine an experience of the non-profit sector, such as a development organization to understand another perspective and enrich our experience of disaster risk reduction mainstreaming.
This study investigates the progress and the practice of disaster risk reduction mainstreaming of World Vision Indonesia based on six key areas of identification; Policy, strategy, geographical planning, project cycle management, relations, and institutional capacity.
The results show that World Vision Indonesia has made substantial progress in the practice of mainstreaming disaster risk reduction into their development program and planning mostly due to the top-down approach of the global strategy. One important prerequisite to an effective and efficient mainstreaming is the establishment of an enabling environment. The adoption of the strategy may to an extent indicate an enabling environment to reach full integration, but this is not yet the case when examining closely into the key areas. It appears that World Vision Indonesia owns sufficient instruments to guide the geographical planning and project cycle management. In reality, these instruments have not been applied, resulting in a fragmented progress to mainstreaming. The available documents also evidenced that the organization aspires to strengthen its relations and institutional capacity, though practitioners acknowledge that presently the progress is lacking, as it may not yet be prioritized.
This study sheds a light for a development and humanitarian organization who would like to review and improve the progress to disaster risk reduction mainstreaming.

• author: Rajagukguk, Tetty Marlina
• supervisor: Misse Wester
• organization: Division of Risk Management and Societal Safety
• course: VBRM15 20181
• year: 2018
• type: H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
• subject: Social Sciences
• keywords: DRR, Mainstreaming, development organization, Integration
• language: English
• id: 8952099
• date added to LUP: 2018-06-25 13:22:39
• date last changed: 2018-06-25 13:22:39