Re-examining critiques of resilience policy: evidence from Barpak after the 2015 earthquake in Nepal
Based on:
Journal Article (2021)
This began as a health systems project to look at resilience policy discourse in the context of Nepal, but instead it found a disconnect between well-intentioned policymakers and the people most affected by the 2015 earthquake
Brief by:
Research collaborators:
Content
One year after the 2015 earthquake, some colleagues and I went to the village, Barpak , which was the epicentre of the earthquake, originally to try and look at how the health system was recovering from the earthquake.
And when we got to Barpak village, it quickly became clear that the health system was not what people in the village wanted to talk about at all. The health system barely existed before the earthquake, so there was little expectation it would function even in normal times, let alone after the earthquake.
We then talked to both the district and the national level governments. And they were all talking about what we need to build is resilience against future disasters.
As it was only one year after the earthquake, the World Bank and DFID were still supporting the Nepal government to make better resilience policy and to adopt international policy templates for how to make communities in Nepal more resilient to future earthquakes and how to better cope with future earthquakes too. But very few of these people were talking to those on the ground, to understand how they understood the resilience (or lack of it) of their communities, or what they thought would help them cope better with future disasters.
What we try and do in the paper is look at some of the existing critiques of resilience policy, and reflect on whether they’re true for Nepal or not.
And so we talked with villagers from Bakpak, who were the victims of the earthquake, and we talk with the government to work out if these critiques do indeed exist.
Therefore there were three mainstream critiques that we then looked into. These were:
1. An attempt to make developing countries more resilient is a top-down process, where you have these internationally agreed policy templates, which then get transmitted by experts down to national governments, who are responsible for transmitting them down to communities. But this does not really take into account what the ordinary people want, or what they think.
2. What is really going on here is the state is retreating from their role to keep the community safe and putting the responsibility on the community or individual to deal with adversity, in the academic world we would refer to it as responsibilisation.
3. What happens when you start talking about resilience policy is that you stop talking about why these communities are so vulnerable in the first place. Meaning the focus is on what they need to better cope with disaster rather than why they are so prone to disaster.
Key findings
We found that the resilience priorities that the government discussed were very different to the priorities that people at the village level were talking to us about.
One example was that instead of wanting to talk about resilience, villagers wanted to talk about was reconstruction - especially the reconstruction of houses.
There was not a retreat of the health care system following the earthquake because it never even existed before the earthquake.
There was emphasis on people needing better constructed homes that won’t fall down in the next earthquake.
But not really any discussion about inequalities, and why some people may be able to build those houses and not others, and why it was some kinds of people's houses that fell down in the previous earthquake, and not others. We found a lack of discussion on the inequalities that existed that led to some people being more vulnerable to earthquake disasters.
Proposed action
Before policy is created, we must start at the community level to understand what are the possibilities and constraints that people face in terms of building houses
This is true to housing, but also resilience policy more widely
If you start at the bottom level and ask people what they feel threatened their lives and livelihoods most and what do they need to build to cope with that? Then I think you'll end up with quite a different set of priorities and also quite a different set of actions of how you deal with those things
You need to ensure consultation with communities in a certain way to ensure their needs have been taken into account in policymaking
Helpful resources
Background: Videos made by residents at the epicentre of the 2015 earthquake [Access resource]
Background: UNDRR project page [Access resource]
Background: Policy report [Access resource]
Comments
You must log in to ask a question
Acknowledgements
Thank you to iDE Global
These insights were made available thanks to the support of iDE Global, who are committed to the dissemination of knowledge for all.
Are you a researcher looking to make a real-world impact? Join Acume and transform your research into a practical summary.
Already have an account? Log in
Discover more
Re-examining critiques of resilience policy: evidence from Barpak after the 2015 earthquake in Nepal
Cite this brief: Rushton, Simon. 'Re-examining critiques of resilience policy: evidence from Barpak after the 2015 earthquake in Nepal'. Acume. https://www.acume.org/r/re-examining-critiques-of-resilience-policy-evidence-from-barpak-after-the-2015-earthquake-in-nepal/
Brief created by: Professor Simon Rushton | Year brief made: 2022
Original research:
- J. B., Rushton, S., & et al., ‘Re-examining critiques of resilience policy: evidence from Barpak after the 2015 earthquake in Nepal’ https://doi.org/10.1111/disa.12487. – https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/disa.12487
Research brief:
This began as a health systems project to look at resilience policy discourse in the context of Nepal, but instead it found a disconnect between well-intentioned policymakers and the people most affected by the 2015 earthquake
One year after the 2015 earthquake, some colleagues and I went to the village, Barpak , which was the epicentre of the earthquake, originally to try and look at how the health system was recovering from the earthquake.
And when we got to Barpak village, it quickly became clear that the health system was not what people in the village wanted to talk about at all. The health system barely existed before the earthquake, so there was little expectation it would function even in normal times, let alone after the earthquake.
We then talked to both the district and the national level governments. And they were all talking about what we need to build is resilience against future disasters.
As it was only one year after the earthquake, the World Bank and DFID were still supporting the Nepal government to make better resilience policy and to adopt international policy templates for how to make communities in Nepal more resilient to future earthquakes and how to better cope with future earthquakes too. But very few of these people were talking to those on the ground, to understand how they understood the resilience (or lack of it) of their communities, or what they thought would help them cope better with future disasters.
What we try and do in the paper is look at some of the existing critiques of resilience policy, and reflect on whether they’re true for Nepal or not.
And so we talked with villagers from Bakpak, who were the victims of the earthquake, and we talk with the government to work out if these critiques do indeed exist.
Therefore there were three mainstream critiques that we then looked into. These were:
1. An attempt to make developing countries more resilient is a top-down process, where you have these internationally agreed policy templates, which then get transmitted by experts down to national governments, who are responsible for transmitting them down to communities. But this does not really take into account what the ordinary people want, or what they think.
2. What is really going on here is the state is retreating from their role to keep the community safe and putting the responsibility on the community or individual to deal with adversity, in the academic world we would refer to it as responsibilisation.
3. What happens when you start talking about resilience policy is that you stop talking about why these communities are so vulnerable in the first place. Meaning the focus is on what they need to better cope with disaster rather than why they are so prone to disaster.
Findings:
We found that the resilience priorities that the government discussed were very different to the priorities that people at the village level were talking to us about.
One example was that instead of wanting to talk about resilience, villagers wanted to talk about was reconstruction – especially the reconstruction of houses.
There was not a retreat of the health care system following the earthquake because it never even existed before the earthquake.
There was emphasis on people needing better constructed homes that won’t fall down in the next earthquake.
But not really any discussion about inequalities, and why some people may be able to build those houses and not others, and why it was some kinds of people’s houses that fell down in the previous earthquake, and not others. We found a lack of discussion on the inequalities that existed that led to some people being more vulnerable to earthquake disasters.
Advice:
Before policy is created, we must start at the community level to understand what are the possibilities and constraints that people face in terms of building houses
- Perhaps it means not building houses in the most perfectly engineered earthquake resistant way, but to compromise and ensure it is accessible and will be used by the community. The village Bakpak, which was the epicentre of the earthquake, typically built stone-walled houses, rather than cement, because the material could be sourced easily and so maybe there is something between the traditional and the reinforced concrete, which was difficult to source and transport. Starting at community level would mean you find out what materials are locally available before too late.
This is true to housing, but also resilience policy more widely
- It’s starting from the bottom. What is it that communities feel they need to be able to better cope with disasters, and trying to learn from examples of communities that have done that relatively well and disseminate that information across communities instead of basing their approach on assumptions.
If you start at the bottom level and ask people what they feel threatened their lives and livelihoods most and what do they need to build to cope with that? Then I think you’ll end up with quite a different set of priorities and also quite a different set of actions of how you deal with those things
- In our research, earthquakes were of course a prominent concern, but landslides were a big concern too – which changed their most urgent need to be given some new land by the government where they could relocate.
You need to ensure consultation with communities in a certain way to ensure their needs have been taken into account in policymaking
- Community consultation can also be encouraged from the bottom-up. For example, in Nepal, local government is a more recent development. And so Nepalese people might not be used to having their concerns taken seriously by the government and might not be used to engaging with the government. And so training is needed for communities to gain advocacy skills to be able to communicate needs in an effective way to local governments.