Inter-Agency Collaboration for Natural Hazard Management in Developed Countries

Although the concept of natural hazard management as the central institutional mode of governance for coping with disasters appeared in the 1970s, inter-agency collaboration in natural hazard management came to the fore with the declaration of the United Nations (UN) Yokohama Strategy in 1994. The Yokohama Strategy focused on collaboration amongst international and regional organizations, donors, early-warning systems, the scientific community and national emergency agencies, among others. The successors of the strategy, the Hyogo Framework for Action launched in 2005, and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction in 2015, continue to emphasize the same. Inter-agency collaboration in governing hazard management is a collective effort, and these efforts have been promoted through cooperation, communication, and effective decision making between actors and organizations, enabled by enhanced technology. The content of the UN’s Yokohama Strategy, Hyogo Framework, Sendai Framework, and the cluster system bear this out. However, more research is required to understand the extent to which national governments have translated the UN’s frameworks into action. Studying how governments and responders coordinate and cooperate and what they coordinate, cooperate on, and communicate will clarify the realized processes that underpin hazard management.