Strategic Research into National and Local Capacity Building for Disaster Risk Management

This pilot study is part of a research aimed at drawing lessons and guidance on ‘how to’ build disaster risk management (DRM) capacity in a range of contexts. The research analyses the characteristics, effectiveness and relative importance of a range of capacity building for DRM interventions across a variety of country contexts. It focuses mainly is on ‘what works and why?’ with a methodology based on a case study approach, involving fieldwork in Ethiopia, Pakistan, Myanmar, Philippines, Haiti and Mozambique.

This report sets out the approach taken during the pilot case study, conducted in March/April 2014 in Ethiopia, findings from the data collection and the proposed changes the team intend to make to the case study approach and research tools for the full case studies. The research project has been designed as an initial step towards filling the knowledge and evidence gap in capacity building for disaster risk management (DRM), as a result of which as a result international actors lack robust, evidence-based guidance on how capacity for DRM can be effectively generated at national and local levels. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) contracted Oxford Policy Management and the University of East Anglia to conduct this research.