Forwarding a challenging task: Seven elements for capacity development for disaster risk reduction

Capacity development for disaster risk reduction is an important process to substantially reduce disaster losses, which threaten sustainable development and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. This paper presents seven elements for capacity development for disaster risk reduction that has been applied in practise with noteworthy results. The seven elements are: (1) Terminology, (2) Local context, (3) Ownership, (4) Capacity assessment, (5) Roles and responsibilities, (6) Mix of activities, and (7) Monitoring, evaluation and learning. Although this set of elements should not be seen as a comprehensive methodology in itself, the seven elements for capacity development for disaster risk reduction still highlight vital aspects and seem to be a both conceptually and pragmatically interesting path to follow for increasing the impact and sustainability of projects.