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).