The disaster risk reduction (DRR) concept evolved in the late 1970s and became the basis of global action by the UN, governments, International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs) and NGOs by 1990s. This global realisation led to the ten-year plan called Hyogo Framework for Action adopted by 168 Member States of the United Nations in 2005 at the World Disaster Reduction Conference¹  urging the states to build resilience against natural disasters –

The concept of mainstreaming DRR into development – also one of the Hyogo Framework for Action postulates – is a proactive way of managing natural calamities. Mainstreaming means that all developmental activities like construction and capacity building and proactive DRR measures like policy-making, must be completely synchronised for efficiently and effectively mitigating the disastrous effects of natural calamities.

Mainstreaming through a top-down approach of policy-making and implementation can reduce vulnerability to the disastrous effects of natural calamities. Likewise, a bottom-up approach to mainstreaming would be to build the capacity of communities vulnerable to natural disasters. Synergy between the top-down and bottom-up approaches would ideally offer maximum mitigation of the disastrous effects of natural calamities and reducing vulnerabilities.

The study examines the linkages between the concept of mainstreaming DRR into development, the political will to establish it, and making the vulnerable communities resilient through it. The paper features a case study of a self-reliant community of Basti (village) Lashkarpur’s remote village near Muzaffargarh in the Southern Punjab of Pakistan. Basti Lashkarpur is a flood prone area and it is sandwiched between two offshoots of a river. It can only be accessed through boats, as the government is yet to construct a bridge for the village. The villagers, with the help of an INGO, have proactively mainstreamed DRR into their indigenous development programmes. Since then, the people of the Basti have successfully mitigated the disastrous effects of recurrent floods.

The research can contribute to the existing and on-going work on revising the future DRR policy and its mainstreaming with developmental pursuits. The paper seeks to establish how small communities can successfully mainstream DRR into development, especially with some help from the NGOs. The Government of Pakistan can emulate this community based disaster risk management (CBDRM) strategy. The case study indicates that the success of DRR strategy depends heavily on the political will of the affected community and its leadership. .

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¹ For details, please see the following link:- http://www.unisdr.org/we/coordinate/hfa