Capacities and Responses to Disaster Governance in Bangladesh: A Reflection from the SDGs

Abstract

Bangladesh is one of the most natural disaster-prone countries of the world. The major disasters include flood, cyclone and storm surge, flash flood, drought, tornado, riverbank erosion, and landslide etc. These extreme natural events are termed as disasters when they adversely affect the environment, including human beings, their shelters, or the resources essential for their livelihoods. Disaster management is a true litmus test of effective governance. Many attributes of governance interplay in disasters, before, during and after a situation. The Government of Bangladesh has taken a number of significant measures in recent years for developing institutional arrangements from national to the local level levels for effective and systematic disaster management facilitating mitigation to the sufferings of disaster victims. With the government many Non Government Organizations (NGOs) are also playing important role in disaster management. Institutions are significantly important to disaster reduction.  Governance is ensured through institutions. Disaster risk governance strongly calls for consideration of balancing both formal institutions and informal institutions and the inclusion of agencies and actors as well as different perceptions and types of knowledge of disaster risk reduction. The paper identifies some challenges that exist in disaster management and addressing of those are supposed to accelerate the process of achieving the SDGs.

Keywords: Disaster, Disaster Governance, SDGs