Getting better at DRR: managing lessons or learning policy?

Emeritus Professor Stephen Dovers, FASSA et al FSES, ANU (tbc)

Abstract

Critical to improving DRR and reconstruction is our ability to learn from disaster events and to apply that knowledge and the lessons we have learned to improve future outcomes. This is variously termed ‘lessons management’ or ‘policy learning’ (which are closely related but not often intersecting areas of work). This paper explores learning from disasters, drawing on the following data and bodies of work:

·      The coverage and nature of >1300 recommendations from 55 major post-event inquiries in Australia since 2009 (Cole et al, in press), and the role of such inquiries, the most well-known ‘lesson drawing’ process we have. Attention is paid to both what is focused on, and what is not,

·      Debates around the optimal forms of post-event inquiry and learning processes (eg Eburn and Dovers 2015, 2017).

·      The role of (national and international) strategic or framework policy in establishing a coherent policy environment within which to gather information and organize knowledge, a matter that has received limited general attention (eg Samnakay 2017), but rarely in the disasters space.

·      The role of organizational and institutional settings in encouraging the gathering, management and use of lessons, which has received less attention than the two above (but see Handmer and Dovers 2013).

The paper paints a more complicated picture of ‘lessons management’, in recognizing the larger landscape of policy learning outside the emergency management sector: that is, the difference between operational lessons management (which we are arguably better at, within the sector) and broader whole-of-government and –society policy learning (which we are arguably worse at). Related is the issue of ensuring that ‘lessons’ are not simply gathered but are used to inform change in practice and policy. Critical but problematic is the need for, and the robustness and persistence of, the policy processes and institutional settings within which either form of learning will be enabled or not.

Bio

Steve Dovers is a former Director of, and now an Emeritus Professor with, the Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, a researcher with the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre, and a Senior Associate with the firm Aither. He has supervised 70 PhD scholars and authored/co-authored over 200 research publications in sustainable development, environmental management and disaster policy, including the Handbook of Disaster Policies and Institutions (with J Handmer, Routledge, 2nd edition 2013), and Environment and Sustainability: A Policy Handbook (with K Hussey, Federation Press, 2nd edition 2013).