Public policy and disaster management

Laws and regulations are the backbones in establishing disaster management policy processes and coordination mechanisms to prepare to respond to emergencies adequately. Comprehensive disaster risk management laws are also integral to ensuring that the functions and responsibilities of different stakeholders in disaster management are clearly articulated. During the past two decades, a new discipline of law, disaster law, has emerged as a distinct field and continues to be progressively codified. It focuses on strengthening institutional and legal frameworks for cohesive disaster risk management and regulating all phases of the disaster management cycle. Disaster law was initially solely focused on international disaster response laws, rules and principles (IDRL), aiming to guarantee operational effectiveness in cross-border emergency responses to natural and human-made disasters. Since setting the stage for the coordination and rulemaking of international response operations, disaster law has rapidly expanded its scope to cover disaster risk reduction legislation and domestic preparedness and response. Discussions in this chapter are organized in the following sections and with a specific focus on IDRL.

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Published in: Routledge Handbook of Public Policy in Africa
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
See chapter on publisher's website: https://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003143840-58