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‘Measuring Mitigation’: methodologies for assessing natural hazard risks and the net benefits of mitigation
Funder/project holder: ProVention Consortium
Researchers: John Twigg (j.twigg@ucl.ac.uk) and Charlotte Benson
| Duration: | September 2003 – March 2004 (Phase 1) |
| April 2004 - March 2007 (Phase 2) |
Phase1. As the human and financial costs of disasters rise, there are increasing demands for evidence that mitigation ‘pays’. Until this proof exists, however, many aid agencies remain reluctant to pursue risk reduction as a key objective, or even to protect their own projects against potential hazards.
Underlying the generation of such evidence, it is necessary to have appropriate tools to analyse and measure the costs of mitigation and the nature of the resulting flow of benefits. These costs and benefits can take many forms, including social, environmental and humanitarian as well as financial ones. However, such tools do not already exist in a coherent form. This project therefore aims to facilitate the development of such tools and related guidelines by exploring how cost-benefit analysis, environmental impact assessment and related methodologies as well as evaluation tools can be expanded to consider risks emanating from natural hazards and to measure related costs and benefits in reducing risk.
‘Measuring mitigation’ is one of a number of projects that ProVention is implementing to develop and demonstrate innovative approaches to the practice of natural hazard risk identification and analysis, risk reduction, and risk sharing and transfer.
The first, scoping phase of the project reviewed agency project documentation and related guidelines and procedures, organised around the different stages of the project cycle. It drew conclusions and made policy recommendations on how risks emanating from natural hazards are currently handled in project appraisal and evaluation, and the scope and need for an improvement in practices.
The full findings are available as a research report and are summarised in a 30pp working paper and 4pp briefing paper. These documents are now available on the ProVention Consortium’s website http://www.proventionconsortium.org/projects/methodology_assess.htm and in print.
The second phase of the project developed Tools
for Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction: Guidance Notes for Development
Organisations, a series of 14 guidance notes for use by development
organisations in adapting project appraisal and evaluation tools to mainstream
disaster risk reduction into their development work in hazard-prone countries.
The series covers the following subjects:
(1) Introduction
(2) Collecting and using information on natural hazards
(3) Poverty reduction strategies
(4) Country programming
(5) Project cycle management
(6) Logical and results-based frameworks
(7) Environmental assessment
(8) Economic analysis
(9) Vulnerability and capacity analysis
(10) Sustainable livelihoods approaches
(11) Social impact assessment
(12) Construction design, building standards and site selection
(13) Evaluating disaster reduction initiatives
14) Budget support.
The full series, published in January 2007, is available at www.proventionconsortium.org/mainstreaming_tools
This phase of the project also saw preparatory work for a more comprehensive
online sourcebook on monitoring and evaluating disaster risk reduction
initiatives, which will be developed further by the ProVention Consortium.
The sourcebook will be available at www.proventionconsortium.org/mainstreaming_tools
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