Knowledge and Education indicators of community-level disaster resilience

DFID’s Conflict and Humanitarian Fund is funding 6 international agencies to work on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) initiatives. The agencies have commissioned the Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre (BUHRC) to develop a set of indicators that can be used by local partner organizations and communities to demonstrate the impact of DRR programmes in achieving a disaster-resilient community. The indicators that will be created will complement as far as possible the Hyogo Framework of Action 2005-2015 (http://www.unisdr.org/eng/hfa/hfa.htm) and will relate to the following 5 thematic areas: Governance; Risk Assessment; Knowledge and Education; Risk Management and Vulnerability; Reduction Disaster Preparedness and Response.

We are two MSc Development Management students (Sara Pavanello and Marianne Liebmann)  at London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and we are assisting the BUHRC as part of a consultancy project. Specifically, we are tasked with assessing which indicators (for the Knowledge and Education area) professionals with experience in  implementing and evaluating DRR programmes consider to be most useful when monitoring and evaluating community-level resilience. We are of the view that these indicators will be far more functional and accurate if we gather opinions from the people who have relevant experience in this field and that will make use of those indicators when necessary.

Your opinion is therefore extremely valuable and we would appreciate your response to the following 3 questions. Please note that the indicators for the Knowledge and Education thematic area have been drafted and are here attached for your perusal.

1.     What do you think are the 3 most useful indicators in the knowledge and education area for achieving a disaster-resilient community? Please list your 3 indicators in order of importance. 
1.

2.

3.
	
2.	Why have you chosen the above indicators?  

	
3.	Can you provide real-life examples of ‘best practice’ for at least one of the indicators that you have chosen and/or provide us with a document/reference of the example? 

	
4.	Please specify your organization name, organization type, and your position/title 
Organization name:
 
Organization type (please mark with an X):
Non-Governmental Organization                                                                                                                           
Governmental Organization
Research or Academic Organization
International Development Agency
Relief, Humanitarian Assistance Organization
Other- Please specify

Position/Title:

5.	Could you please let us know if we can contact you again in case we need any additional information or clarification? 

YES  /   NO

Your responses (together with others) will provide valuable input for the development of the above indicators and will help inform our LSE consultancy project report for the BUHRC.

If you would like more information on this project please refer to the following website: http://www.benfieldhrc.org/disaster_studies/projects/communitydrrindicators/community_drr_indicators_index.htm

If you have any queries or require further clarification regarding this questionnaire please do not hesitate to contact either Sara Pavanello (s.pavanello@lse.ac.uk) or Marianne Liebmann (m.j.liebmann@lse.ac.uk). 

We would appreciate your feedback (by return e-mail) as soon as possible. 

Thank you for your co-operation and kind regards,

Sara Pavanello and Marianne Liebmann