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Disasters and their effects are well documented but little mentioned is how people have traditionally coped before disasters strike. Evidence exists that communities are endowed with traditional early warning systems that ensured safety for communities and minimal loss of lives and property to hazards. More recently, climatic change has created confusion in the ecological system such that indigenous early warning systems have either been discarded or underutilized. There are more frequent and prolonged droughts and heavy flooding leading to a decrease in natural resources that people must fight for often literally to survive. Hazards have increased not only in frequency but also in severity.

Floods for instance affect communities, with a consequence of more fatalities and more property damage than or equal to any other type of sudden-onset hazard. Flood is known to disrupt safe water supply system, displace people spontaneously, trigger water borne disease outbreaks and erode economic gains within the shortest period. Every year, floods disrupt the livelihood of millions of people and are responsible for thousands of deaths and displacements worldwide.

Droughts on the other hand are slow-onset events that can cause large agro-ecological damage and seriously disrupt socio-economic life. Africa is most often hit by drought. In the last two decades, millions of Africans have died and millions more forced to abandon their land. With the increasing population against the dwindling natural resources that can sustain people, hazards like droughts have occasioned conflict between communities and individuals subsequently leading to loss of lives and property.

While disasters have presented themselves as mother earth’s fury and for which we seem powerless to overcome, the Community Managed Disaster Risk Reduction (CMDRR) approach has empowered communities to take own initiatives to reduce the risks associated with hazards and disasters by extension. Working with partners, communities have increasingly focused on rebuilding their lives through economic productivity rather than relying on relief.

The CMDRR approach evolved as the partners shifted from emergency response to a more proactive systematic approach of preventing, mitigating and preparing for drought and other hazards. CMDRR is an empowering process where a community systematically manages its disaster risk reduction measures towards becoming a safe and resilient community. It places community committees at the center of participatory disaster risk assessment, planning and implementation. It emphasizes the importance of communities being empowered to prepare and respond to micro level hazards, have a stake in risk reduction measures and link their efforts to government institutions.

This publication is jointly produced by Cordaid and its implementing partners in Kenya,
Uganda and Ethiopia and International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR). The projects shared for learning in this document piloted the CMDRR approach between June 2008 and July 2010.