Masters in Public Administration - MPA / Greater capacity for cities to be disaster resilient is needed. Public-private partnership enhances municipal capacity. This study therefore, interrogates the relationship between the City of Cape Town and its disaster relief partners. It is mainly concerned with policy implementation, and as such, investigates disaster management policy implementation in relation to public-private partnerships. The objectivesof the study were to provide a conceptual framework that defines the terms eminent in the practice and study of disaster management, particularly those that characterize public-private partnerships in the City of Cape Town; to explore the legislative mandate that makes provisions for disaster management and the funding of public-private partnerships in municipalities; to document the current practice of public-private partnerships in the City of Cape Town; to highlight noted challenges in the partnership and where necessary, recommend alternative policy implementation options for enhanced partnership sustainable capacity for disaster relief. The researcher deemed it expedient to utilize the qualitative method for the purposes of the adeptness it affords in expediting malleable, arduous investigation in engaging with the phenomena that “unfold[s] in real-world situations.” As far as the findings of this study are concerned, the public-private partnership of the City of Cape Town with its disaster relief partners is a successful one. It is effective in bringing the much needed awareness and relief to devastated communities. There are four main challenges that impact on this disaster relief partnership have been realized by this study. These namely are the delays in the reimbursement process, the constant change of government personnel dealing with relief partners, absence of a disaster relief official on the sites of distress and unsubsidized expenses incurred by the relief partners. Having realized these challenges, the study makes policy implementation recommendations.

This dissertation examines the effect of environmental discourse and disaster risk reduction mapping in the favela Santa Marta, an urban informal settlement in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. With the world’s largest urban forest within the metro area, Rio de Janeiro is unusual for a metropolis of more than ten million people in the rapidly urbanizing country of Brazil. The government of Rio de Janeiro has attempted to control favela settlements since the early 20th century, but beginning in the 1990s the prefecture began delimiting favela settlements with environmentally protected areas called ecolimits. According to the state’s calculations, in the 2000s favelas began to rapidly expand into the urban forest, which is protected by the ecolimits and national parks. In 2009, the state built a wall around Santa Marta, justified by concerns about expansion into the adjacent forest. The state then labeled Santa Marta the model favela after infrastructure improvements there and the installation of the first Pacification Police Unit, a new form of community policing begun in 2008 for favelas. The focus of my study is the particular ways that the government has framed its resettlement efforts in Santa Marta and how favela residents responded. I employ the concept of biopolitics assemblage to critically investigate the state’s and international institutions’ discursive and material practices of disaster risk management in Santa Marta. I collected data using a mixed methods approach during 15 months of fieldwork. Through archival research, I document the history of favela control tactics and trace the roots of disaster risk management in Rio de Janeiro to a World Bank financed disaster response project initiated in 1988. Using ethnographic methods, I documented residents’ responses to and understandings of the government’s resettlement project for Santa Marta. My results indicate that the state has discursively shifted the problem of favelas from a social question to an environmental one, while residents continue to frame favela conditions as a social justice issue and challenge the state’s assessment of environmental risk.

Masters in Public Administration - MPA / The problem question of this study is how the City of Cape Town, as a metro municipality went about implementing Disaster Risk Assessments. While the National Disaster Management Centre acknowledges that municipalities are battling to perform Disaster Risk Assessments. Understanding what was done, by whom and when will aid in the understanding of implementing Disaster Risk Assessments. Uncovering the prospects and challenges they faced and will help shed light on the guidance that is required by other municipalities, although this study’s inference is limited by the methodology. The relatively new Disaster Management Act requires a shift from old civil defence legislation to a proactive disaster risk reduction mode, with new institutional arrangements. The shift to a proactive disaster risk reduction approach required by the new legislation cannot be achieved without firstly implementing these new institutional and policy arrangements and secondly, implementing this first and vital step in the disaster risk reduction process namely, Disaster Risk Assessments. The study also seeks to understand in the community was involved. This is a qualitative study, i.e. it contains descriptive statistics and narratives. It used questionnaires to provide numerical and descriptive data to measure compliance to the Disaster Management Act in terms of the institutional arrangements implemented by the City of Cape Town. Secondly, qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews to provide data to understand the challenges and prospects encountered in performing Disaster Risk Assessments. A literature review was also undertaken to highlight the current debates in Disaster Risk Reduction. The stratified sample was from the officials employed at the City’s Disaster Management Centre, Area Managers, NGOs, Ward Councillors and Consultants. The data was collated and the analysed. The objective is to primarily understand what was done, by whom, when and secondly to understand the prospects and challenges faced. The findings, recommendations and areas of future study are captured in this research report.

As a result of the United Nations’ International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (1990-2000), and recent high profile disasters, disaster risk reduction has climbed high on the international political agenda. There has been a paradigm shift from reacting to disasters towards preparing for and mitigating effects of disasters. Among the measures that have been highlighted on the disaster risk reduction agenda are early warning systems. In a Swedish context, there are needs for early warnings for various flood risk types. Municipalities carry big responsibilities for managing flood risks, and early warnings have a potential to facilitate decision-making and ultimately reduce flood losses. The aim of this thesis is to describe how a variety of flood warning signals are used in the risk management process of Swedish municipalities, how they can contribute to the flood risk reducing process, and which factors influence the success of this. The thesis is based on two papers. Paper I is based on interviews with three respondents from Swedish municipalities that have invested in and established local early warning systems. The paper shows that the possible effects from a local early warning system are not only reduced flood losses but also potential spinoff, the occurrence of which is dependent on the well-being of the organisation and its risk management processes. Paper II is based on interviews with 23 respondents at 18 Swedish municipalities, who have responsibilities related to flood risk management, and one respondent who works at SMHI with hydrological warning. The paper shows that municipalities can use a variety of complementary flood warning signals to facilitate decision-making for a proactive flood response. This is however not systematically the case, and is dependent on available resources. The theoretical contribution of this thesis is a development of existing conceptual models of early warning systems with respect to risk management and system contexts, and the use of complementary warning signals. / Following the United Nations’ International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (1990-2000), and recent high profile disasters, disaster risk reduction has climbed high on the international political agenda. Among the measures that have been highlighted are early warning systems – for Swedish municipalities who are responsible for managing flood risks, early warnings have a potential to facilitate decision-making and ultimately reduce flood losses. This licentiate thesis, based on two articles, aims to describe how a variety of flood warning signals are used in the risk management process of Swedish municipalities, how they can contribute to the flood risk reducing process, and which factors influence the success of this. The articles show that the possible effects from a local early warning system are not only reduced flood losses but also potential spin-off benefits, the occurrence of which is dependent on factors such as organisational culture and the functioning of the wider risk management system, and that municipalities can use a variety of complementary flood warning signals to facilitate decision-making for a proactive flood response which, however, is not systematically the case as benefits are dependent on available resources.

This paper examines how green areas may be used as strategic recovery zones in the event of an earthquake and how these zones may strengthen the resilience for future quakes in Istanbul. The paper also refers to investigating why the planning system in Turkey can pose a threat for the provision of green areas. Green areas have proven to be an important feature in natural disaster stricken cities for coping with disasters by strengthening the city’s resilience. However due to rapid population growth and high demand for housing and infrastructure, green areas risk disappearing when the city expands. This problem is evident all major cities of turkey and particularly in the country’s largest city Istanbul, where green areas are benign exploited instead of preserved; leaving larger city’s such as Istanbul vulnerable for future earthquake disasters. The high demand for new housing and functioning infrastructure in conjunction with a complicated planning system in Turkey leads to a vaguely regulated planning system, which creates a threat to green areas. This creates an uncertain situation for the city's ability and resilience to withstand a future earthquake disaster. The study will be based on a qualitative method. The empirical material will be presented through a previous research overview and a case study, which is also based on previous research on the subject. Essay analysis will be performed based on a quantitative text analysis based on concepts; urban disaster resilience, green infrastructure, land use planning and governance, presented in the essays theoretical framework. The general conclusions of the study are that there is a lack of good governance in the planning system in Turkey, which creates restrictions for a sustainable and resilient urban planning in the city of Istanbul. Green areas are resilience and capacity building areas in the city to handle future earthquake disaster, by providing open recovery zones in a densely built city. It is therefore important to plan for a long-term land use and to regard the green areas in the city to uphold strong urban disaster resilience for future earthquakes in Istanbul.

Disaster risk reduction policies and practitioners alike emphasise the importance of vulnerability reduction. However, the concept of vulnerability is highly dynamic, and research still strives to understand and capture its complexity. The purpose of this study was to improve the understanding of flood vulnerability in rural disaster-prone communities in Mozambique. To explore previous experiences of floods, I conducted semi-structured interviews with local risk committee members and community members in the lower Limpopo river basin. The findings were analysed with an analytical framework consisting of the Disaster Pressure and Release (PAR) model, drawing on political ecology and the Access model. Disaster was studied as a process revealing important factors, capabilities and strains affecting peoples’ vulnerability. This paper illustrated that rural communities in the lower Limpopo river basin are vulnerable to floods in a variety of ways. The findings presented unsafe conditions such as the fragile local economy, unsafe natural resources, strained physical resources and limited access to human and social capital. Several factors deriving from political, social and economic structures were found to influence specific forms of vulnerability expressed in relation to floods. Therefore, this paper contributes to new insights of how flood vulnerability can be described and explained in Mozambique.

Natural hazards are predicted to only increase in frequency and severity over the next decade, making it crucial to avoid their negative consequences by disaster risk reduction. Reducing risks of natural hazards is not a recent invention as it has been shown that indigenous and local communities possess indigenous and local knowledge systems related to reducing disaster risks. These knowledge systems are however largely being ignored in policy and research. They are also subjected to pressures which risk altering, eroding or destroying them. In this thesis, these indigenous and local knowledge systems and the pressures that might threaten them are explored through a field study with interviews and observations in rural indigenous and local communities in northern Thailand. The findings show clear evidence of multiple and varying types of indigenous and local knowledge systems, such as knowledges, practices, and beliefs that reduce disaster risk. However, multiple types of pressures to the indigenous and local knowledge systems are also found. These pressures have in some cases already resulted in a loss of indigenous and local knowledge systems, or risk doing so in the future. The conclusion of the thesis is that these indigenous and local knowledge systems and the pressures to them should be kept in close mind in research, policy and intervention to improve disaster risk reduction and not perpetuate the current western paradigm.

To strengthen societies and address the increased risks generated by climate change, development projects within disaster risk reduction [DRR] and climate change adaptation [CCA] must ensure the sustainability of capacity development. However, sustainability is currently flawed in such projects, which could relate to the inadequate achievement of empowerment of targeted beneficiaries. Some scholars suggest that vertical collaboration – the collaboration between stakeholders and beneficiaries – is decisive in determining the achievement of community empowerment during implementation. Still, the role of vertical collaboration and the dynamics of this relationship remains unexplored. By comparing a development initiative within climate-smart agriculture [CSA] implemented in two different communities in Eswatini, this thesis aims to evaluate the achievement of vertical collaboration and explore the relationship between vertical collaboration and empowerment. The results show that the achievement of vertical collaboration does covariate with the presence of empowerment and that certain factors are more influential in determining outcomes than others. These factors include the presence of opportunities for all participants to get involved; active, accessible, and participatory communication; bidirectional learning; and providing beneficiaries with voice and decision-making power. The findings support the theoretical argument, demonstrating that vertical collaboration plays a role in determining empowerment, and highlight the importance of considering it as a critical aspect when implementing CSA projects. However, the sustainability of capacity developments could not be identified in either community, suggesting that alternative factors might be essential for long-term outcomes. Further research is required to understand interconnections among identified factors and how they can be leveraged for the success and sustainability of capacity development within this field.

Natural disasters and hazards pose significant risks and challenges for people and communities all around the world, among the groups most vulnerable to these events are elderly populations who face physical, social, and psychological hardships in the face of disasters. The vulnerability and lacking resilience of elderly are a growing global concern as their proportion of the world's population is steadily increasing with an estimated 1 in 6 people being aged 65 and over by 2050, doubling the current number. The physical frailty, cognitive decline, sensory impairment, and economic disadvantage that often come paired with aging can make older adults more susceptible to harm in the face of natural disasters and social isolation, limited access to resources, and dependency on caregivers or family members further increase the risk of adverse outcomes for the elderly during and after a disaster. It is essential for the future to address the unique challenges faced by older populations in disaster situations and identify effective strategies to enhance their resilience and reduce their vulnerability. In Japan, with a rapidly aging society and increasing numbers of elderly individuals, the issue of disaster preparedness and response becomes even more pronounced. The current policies of individual self-reliance and community-based disaster management are heavily promoted as the way forward, but are these policies suitable and sufficient for elderly and vulnerable populations? This thesis seeks to explore whether these policies are suitable for the needs and realities of the increasing number of elderly and vulnerable individuals who are unable to take care of themselves in times of crisis.  Through an analysis of vulnerability and resilience, this thesis seeks to identify the key factors that contribute to the experiences of elderly people in disaster situations. By presenting a case study of Japan, the thesis aims to identify the strengths and weaknesses of current policies and strategies in promoting resilience and reducing vulnerability among elderly populations in Japan. This thesis aims to provides a critical insight into the policies and strategies for promoting resilience and reducing vulnerability among elderly populations during disasters and to highlight the need to critically reflect on the suitability of current policies in relation to the the growing number of vulnerable elderly.

The history of the mining industry indicates a lack of understanding among the decision-makers of the impact the closure of mines has on the industry and the associated effects on the society and surrounding environment. The policies of the mining industry do make provision for a planned mine closure, but not for an unexpected closure. This detrimental aspect of closures in the mining industry is highlighted in the present study. The present study investigates how mineworkers’ dependency on their employment at a mine affects their ability to sustain their livelihoods. Vulnerable livelihoods leave the community at a greater risk to be affected by a disaster, than the livelihoods of a community that is resilient and has sustainable resources. Even though mineworkers are not considered as poor at the time of their employment, a mine closure could render them into a status called ‘transitional poverty’. This study also highlights that mineworkers who are skilled for mining operations only do not overcome the status of ‘transitional poverty’ and hence enter a phase called ‘chronic poverty’. This stage constitutes their inability to negotiate livelihood strategies and livelihood outcomes that could sustain a household. Thus humanitarian assistance would be needed from outside sources. Planning for unexpected mine closures should also be on the agenda of the mining industry due to the extreme consequences such an event holds for the mining community experiencing the event. In the case under investigation, the unexpected mine closures occurred in the Grootvlei mine in Springs and the Orkney mine owned by the Aurora Empowerment Systems Ltd. at the time of this study. These closures left the surrounding communities in need of food, shelter and clean water. The inhabitants gradually lost their livelihood assets. A contingency planning model is proposed at the end of this study to address the short-term and long-term consequences of an unexpected mine closure. / M Development and Management, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014