Disaster risk reduction and local ownership: The effect of political competition, patronage and armed conflict on the local ownership of disaster risk reduction in the Philippines

This study explores the factors determining and/or limiting local ownership of the main disaster risk reduction (DRR) components. The central question of this study is: “what critical factors limit the uptake of disaster risk reduction policies at the local level?”. It demonstrates the importance of examining the root cause of vulnerability at the local level, as “politically irrelevant” communities have shown lower level of DRR ownership.

The challenges of creating local ownership of DRR in communities are the following:

• political patronage;
• political competition;
• armed violence.

This document is an input paper of the 2015 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction.