The politics of risk and uncertainty in anticipatory disaster response
Topics: Hazards, Risks, and Disasters
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Keywords: Disaster; anticipation; early action; risk; uncertainty; liability
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 03:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 05:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 60
Authors:
Olivia Taylor, University of Sussex
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Abstract
Acting in advance of disasters, through approaches referred to as Disaster Risk Financing, or more generically as ‘Anticipatory Action’ (AA), have been gaining traction among humanitarian and disaster response agencies. In September 2021, a High-Level event convened by the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs saw donors and response agencies commit to significantly increase the proportion of their spending allocated to anticipation, and to ensure that ‘anticipatory action becomes the new standard in disaster management’ (Aly, 2021).
These approaches are based on the principle that many hazards have degrees of predictability during which we could take mitigating actions, resulting in more efficient and effective response. The mechanisms for implementing AA vary but are characterised by combining i) disaster risk predictions, ii) pre-arranged finance and plans and iii) triggers for response (Clarke and Dercon, 2016).
However, AA poses a temporal shift, and a new set of operational parameters for humanitarian action (De Wit, 2019), opening up the potential for either missing events, or ‘acting in vain’. In so doing, it heightens the importance of the perceived legitimacy of decision-making within such mechanisms.
This presentation explores the ‘political economy of liability’ (Johnson, 2020) opened up by AA, which I argue drives a need for systems which legitimise decision-making. This leads to an excessive focus on rationalities of ‘risk-based’ decision-making, premised on probability metrics linked to automation and triggers, at the expense of fully acknowledging the uncertainties and ambiguities inherent in attempts to anticipate disasters.
The politics of risk and uncertainty in anticipatory disaster response
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Virtual Paper Abstract
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