Description
A Pandemic being a global biological hazard needs more strategic planning, awareness, capacities, and resources to contain and mange any outbreaks such as the recent COVID-19 outbreak. During the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the extent of its importance, countries have realised their lack of preparedness to handle a global pandemic that has resulted in millions of deaths worldwide. One of the main causal factors for this is the lack of capacities among local level stakeholders on pandemic preparedness and associated planning. Though there are international policies and frameworks such as Health Emergency Disaster Risk Management (HEDRM), there are gaps in translating these related policies into local level stakeholders’ actions which has results them less prepared to face and manage pandemics within their locality. With this wider context, this study aimed to explore insights on several critical problems that need to be better understood in order to improve epidemic and pandemic preparedness, integration within the local level disaster risk reduction plans. Padang city in Indonesia was chosen as the case study. Padang is the capital city of the West Sumatra Province of Indonesia, and is inhabited by 1 million people, and is a metropolitan area which is one of the most prone to geophysical disasters in Indonesia. The study adopted a systematic literature review using academic data bases, and institutional reports, along with field work in Padang city, Indonesia using semi-structured interviews and several focus group discussions. Participants from the national and local level government and non-governmental organizations, and local communities were interviewed and also took part in the focus group discussions. Based on a thematic analysis, key findings were arrived at, which were mapped across ten thematic areas highlighted by the HEDRM framework, so that they can be adopted as part of wider local disaster risk reduction policies in Padang city. Lack of local level policies, lack of coordination, clear roles, and task distribution among stakeholders, resource and knowledge scarcities were some of the key challenges identified among many. To overcome these challenges, development of an integrated disaster management plan for Padang city along with a strong capacity building programme was highlighted as strategies that can be implemented, by both government and non-government stakeholders, in mainstreaming pandemic preparedness within the local disaster risk reduction in Padang city for making it resilient for future Pandemics.| Period | 18 Dec 2023 |
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| Event title | United Kingdom Alliance for Disaster Research Annual Conference 2023: 2030 AND BEYOND: Risk-informed decision making, investment and behaviour |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Huddersfield, United KingdomShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |