1. Towards increased resilience:
The role of social capital in inclusive
risk and disaster governance”
International Disaster Reduction
Conference
Davos, August 28, 2012
Ortwin Renn
Stuttgart University and
DIALOGIK gemeinnützige GmbH

2. PART 1
Risk, Vulnerability and Resilience

3. Risk, Vulnerability and Resilience
 Risk: Probability of a risk agent (hazard)
impacting on a risk absorbing system (target)
and causing specific extent of damage
 Vulnerability: The extent to which the risk
absorbing system reacts to the stress induced
by the risk agent
 Resilience: The extent to which the risk
absorbing system has the capacity to cope
with stress induced by the risk agent

4. Vulnerability and Resilience
 Risk: Probability of a risk agent (hazard)
impacting on a risk absorbing system (target)
and causing specific extent of damage
 Vulnerability: The extent to which the risk
absorbing system reacts to the stress induced
by the risk agent
 Resilience : The extent to which the risk
absorbing system has the capacity to cope
with stress induced by the risk agent

5. Main Objectives for Resilience
1.to guarantee the functional continuity
service in times of stress and disaster
2.to limit the extent of losses and
impacts if the service is discontinued
3.to ensure fast recovery if the provider
of the service is unable to continue to
provide the needed service

6. PART 2
Model of Inclusive Governance

7. Efficiency
Acceptance
Fairness
Effectiveness
Legitimacy
Participation
Mediation
The basic structure of inclusive (risk and disaster)
governance

8. Crucial Questions for Inclusion
 Inclusion
Who: stakeholders, scientists, public(s)
What: options, policies, scenarios, frames,
preferences
Scope: multi-level governance (vertical and
horizontal)
Scale: space, time period, future generations
 Closure
What counts: acceptable evidence)experience
What actions should be taken?: competition of
rationales, goals, objectives
How can performance be evaluated? Different
standards, role of accountability, success

9. Who should be involved?
 Vertical governance
 Political bodies ranging from communities via
regions, states, countries, to international level
Other agencies or ministries (disaster, planning,
development, housing, health care)
Subordinate administrations
 Horizontal governance
Stakeholders (organized groups with an interest in
the issue including private sector and NGOs)
Experts (groups with specific knowledge)
Multipliers (Media, opinion leaders)
Affected and general public

10. General Requirements for Inclusive Governance
 Fairness
 inclusion of all affected parties
 representation of all relevant arguments
 representation of all relevant interests and values
 Competence
 communicative ability (able to make claims and challenge them)
 substantive validity (state of the art in knowledge)
 Regional appropriateness
 Accountability
 transparency (internal and external)
 Reliability
 compatibility with legal mandates
 Efficiency
 procedures
 outcomes

11. PART 3
Application to Risk and Disaster
Governance

12. Why Inclusive Governance for Risk &
Disaster Governance?
a. Plurality of modern living conditions: resource
availability, living conditions, values, lifestyles
b. Increased uncertainties with respect to future
development, climate change impacts, socio-
political transformations
c. Movement towards decentralization (political
preference, local quest for more autonomy)
d. Distributed knowledge and expertise (systematic,
tacit, experiential, local)
e. Better communication and planning tools
available (IT, real time monitoring)
f. Limited resources and distribution of agency

13. Problems of Inclusive Risk and Disaster
Governance
a. Lack of central mega-planning, coordination,
control, supervision (governance deficits)
Balance of assignments (mandate, roles, functions)
among all actors
Fragmentation of responsibilities
a. Quality control
Lack of competence
Lack of accountability
a. Incompatibility of approaches (differences in
disciplines, organizational cultures, mandates,
identities
b. External constraints: Exclusive focus on
efficiency on the expense of resilience

14. Requirements for Inclusive Risk and Disaster
Governance
a. Organizational structure with emphasis on:
 distributed intelligence and operations but
strong efforts to foster a common organizational
culture and identity and
promoting auditing, supervision, and organizational
learning.
a. Adaptive management procedures, including:
 regular revisiting of goals, means, and procedures
 and conducting internal/external reviews
a. Use of IT-tools and open access services to
prove a common communication platform for all
actors involved
b. Create a learning environment that provides
incentives for all actors to improve performance

15. Model for Effective Inclusive Governance
(US National Academy of Scienes)
Experiential knowledge agencies,
Vert:ical: Cooperation between
central and decentral agencie
Horizontal: Private-public
partnerships, stakeholder
involvement, public participation
ANALYIS
Regional tacit knowledge,
Knowledge integration/monitoring
DELIBERATION
Interdsiciplinary science community

16. CONCLUSIONS
Resilience:
– functionality of system
– impact limitation and
– ease of recovery
Need for a transition towards inclusive risk and
disaster governance
Need for adaptive risk and disaster
management based on decentralized operations
and centralized coordination
One model: the analytic-deliberative approach to
organize inclusive governance

17. EXTRA SLIDES

18. Introducing the IRGC’s Risk Governance Framework
DecidingUnderstanding
Pre-assessment
ManagementCommunication
Characterisation
and evaluation
Appraisal
IRGC’s RISK GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK
Who needs to
do what, when?
Who needs to
know what,
when?
Is the risk
tolerable,
acceptable or
unacceptable?
Getting a
broad picture
of the risk
The knowledge
needed for
judgements and
decisions