What constitutes successful participatory disaster risk management? Insights from post-earthquake reconstruction work in rural Gujarat, India

Although for decades, public participation in disaster risk management has been strongly advocated for, in reality, it remains elusive. Planners and practitioners are still struggling to find ways to meaningfully involve the local community in disaster management programs; so far, apparently successful projects and initiatives have seldom been scaled up or replicated. The reason for this is that no comprehensive framework for participatory disaster risk management exists, and no systematic evaluation has been made to assess the necessary elements and appropriate paths for meaningful public participation in disaster management. This study attempts to examine the process and identify outcome-based factors that account for successful participatory disaster risk management. To accomplish this, we have evaluated reconstruction projects in earthquake-affected rural Gujarat, India, where the government envisioned a people-centric reconstruction project, but provided no public participation framework or guidelines. As a result, several reconstruction models pursuing different levels and types of public participation ultimately emerged. We selected three dominant reconstruction approaches and examined the extent to which various processes and outcome-based factors were successful in promoting ideal levels of public participation during these reconstruction projects. This study is considered an example of pioneering research in defining factors that account for successful participatory disaster risk management.