AS a new comer in the disaster-preparedness/disaster risk reduction (DP/DRR) field, the writer has always pondered over the question why people in developed countries have better coping capacity than those in the developing world. There is no doubt that their affluence has enabled them to acquire more skill, equipment, and awareness to face any disaster, than we have here in the third world.

Moreover, the governments, from national to municipal and county level, have the skill and capacity to deal with distress caused by any disaster. This has helped them to tame the immediate effects of disasters, and minimize casualties and loss.

This leads me to ask: why is the level of disaster-preparedness so low in our part of the globe? Is it only because of the poverty level? Is it only because our governments are weak and unable to cope with emergency situations? Is it because of negligence that we do not think of our own survival, let alone the collective safety of the people?

We always blame disasters for our miseries. However, aren't we are vulnerable because we cannot respond to even the slightest tremor of calamity?

This makes the writer ask the following questions: Why does every disaster-preparedness project in our part of the world always have the term "community-

based" in its title? Why must a special effort be made to clarify that a particular project is a community-based one?

I suspect that we have this habit of including "community-based" in a project name because our projects do not have participation of community members, top-down, and are not sustainable! (Just like a university which claims itself to be a "research university," thus telling the public that research has never been taken seriously as an inherent part of a life in that particular academia!)

Look at the disasterpreparedness methods developed by and for people of the developed world. It can be guaranteed that their disaster-preparedness plan does not include such terms as "community-based" or "local action plan." The jargon is absent, but interestingly enough, that doesn't mean that the community is not participating. The level of preparedness at personal, family, and community level is very high.

For developed countries, disaster-preparedness at state, municipal, neighbourhood, and family level is common. South Korea is always prepared for any forthcoming attack from neighbouring

North Korea. Mock drills are organised regularly, and the response and deployment time of vital machineries is carefully calculated.

There are many resources available in developed countries, like first aid training, building codes, early warning systems, and others. That is not simply because they have more advanced information systems, skill, or professionalism. It's beyond that.

After working in Bangladesh for one year, the writer has arrived at a set of conclusions -- albeit very naively constructed -- which I offer to the public for the sake of a healthy intellectual exercise. All of the following are highly debatable, and the writer will be more than happy to receive counter arguments.

The issue of disasterpreparedness in Bangladesh and other developing countries is three-pronged:

l At personal and family level: Creation of tacital knowledge, in order to ensure behaviour change.

l At community level: Strengthening community mobilization and organization in order to ensure a strong self-

help mechanism.

l At national level, which comprises two aspects:

i Creation of a relatively consistent capacity across the line of authority (national-division-district (strategic decision-making level) vis-à-vis upazila-union (the implementation level).

ii Systematic and agreed division of labour (who's doing what, where, and how) among stakeholders: particularly the government, private sector, and academia.

Creation of tacital knowledge at personal and family level should be considered seriously. The problem is: lack of knowledge, and if some knowledge does manage to trickle down, it lacks the impetus for action (knowledge simply cannot make people change or move).

There is no doubt about the importance of a comprehensive and continuous awarenessraising campaign to let people know and, more importantly, to make people use that knowledge to make themselves as well as others safe. However, the writer must admit that the process of creating a full cycle of KAP (knowledge, attitude, and practice) is easier said than done.

Therefore, while awarenessraising campaigns should be made for the general population, investment in tacital knowledge, which will enable people to change and act, should be made. At this juncture, I argue that the best targets are children/students and mothers.

No one is more capable of than children. Children are blessed with better capacity for absorbing and preserving new values than the older part of the society as they are still in the state of tabula rasa.

Thus, any disasterpreparedness method at personal and family level can be introduced to them, while its benefit can be felt in the near future, as they grow up and create a bigger potion of community who are aware of what to do before, during, and after disaster.

Mothers and children are the main subjects for a behaviour change initiative. A mother is always at the receiving end of every misfortune in the family. It is widely acknowledged that they are the ones who will be hardest hit in the event of a real disaster.

Normally, she has to juggle with

anxiety and fear of incapability to feed her children and to make her husband happy. In a real disaster, she will be the main actor in the rehabilitation effort at family level. Mothers have been openly exposed to danger and threats. Thus, no one else can have the ability to understand the importance of DP/DRR. They all know that their failure to do so will, at the end of the day, create misery for themselves, rather than other family members.

A great mystery of development work lies at the community level: why does a community -- consisting of a group of people who have knowledge, skill, and resources -remains isolated from each other; unorganized and unable to produce a collective solution for a common issue in their own neighbourhood?

Lack of drive for selfmobilization and organisation in our communities has made everybody passive. Great effort is needed for the community to have productive collectivity to acquire, create, and institutionalize a culture of collective solution.

Mobilisation and organisation of the community will be needed most in the event of a real disaster, when every public service system collapses and presence of state apparatus is minimal. Without mobilisation and organisation an unorganised community will only cry for help, without thinking of what they can do to revive themselves with the remaining resources. At the end of the day, it will create another missing link in the chain of "relief-rehabilitation-development," as a disaster-affected community depends on relief, rather than involving itself in a participatory self-help mechanism. No rehabilitation effort will be successful in a dependent community.

At the national level, the issues are two-faceted. It entails the need to create a consistent capacity level of state apparatus across different hierarchies. While the national, divisional, and district levels seem to have similar level of knowledge and complete picture of the issue, the upazila (subdistrict) and union or village levels tends to in a modest state, not to say lack of capacity.

It is true than those in the local level will be the implementation

arms of a body, however, with lack of capacity, problems will be serious in the field as preparedness, mitigation, and response level will be disrupted. Therefore, investment to enhance the capacity of upazila and union to prepare and response to disaster should be increased.

Meanwhile, systematic and agreed division of labours across different types of actors in disaster preparedness/disaster reduction is somewhat different from the "standing orders on disaster" which has been produced by the government.

What the writer is trying to emphasize here is more of a general and loose idea of a more integrative involvement of private sectors and academia to the entire effort disaster prepared-ness/disaster risk reduction, with government as the main facilitator.

While the academia always have extra sense and perception to analyze (potential) problem in the society, their role as a drumbeater or reminder of any seemingly remote issue should get more respect from others.

The global warming and climate change issue is developed from academia, until it becomes a collective concern of all of us. The list goes to aspects like safe construction system, adherence to building code, and early warning system. More researches from academia on disaster should be stimulated and adopted by all parties concerned.

With regard to private sector, many have witnessed their contribution in the aftermath of disaster through relief assistance. Their participation can be extended to DP/DRR initiatives, as it is more sustainable. Moreover, the fact that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) campaigns are mushrooming globally provides bigger opportunities a more comprehensive participation of actors in DP/DRR.

Those ideas might be scattered and their coherence questionable, but its intention is clear: all of us in the developing world have been disastrous so long, due to our incapability to deal with simplest disaster.

This trend should be reversed. Disaster will always happen, but its effect and impact can be minimized. DP/DRR doesn't only entail survival messages, but also community organisation, harmonising capacity of state apparatus of different hierarchies, and incorporation of other actors along with their role and responsibilities.

Surya Aslim is an Indonesian working for a disaster-preparedness project at Islamic Relief Bangladesh.