A holistic approach to overcome difficulties in disaster-mitigation policy

In the field of disaster mitigation, research institutions such as universities produce lots of necessary knowledge. Such ideas and knowledge should diffuse both locally and globally. Locally, Disaster Mitigation Research Center in Nagoya University, which is called “Gensaikan”, shows a typical example of dissemination of knowledge. With a global agenda of sustainable development and given that Japan has a vast amount of experience as well as cutting-edge knowledge in the field of disaster mitigation, Japan should take a leading role to consider how to build a resilient society all over the world. In this sense, ideas and knowledge on disaster mitigation should travel globally and be implemented to other local contexts as appropriate. As an example, the presentation deals with medical care activities after the Tohoku earthquake in Japan to see the complexity of disaster risk mitigation. Epistemic community, which various international organizations such as the United Nations or the World Bank provide as a platform, is a place where such ideas are addressed.
The policy area of disaster mitigation shows two particular challenges to this process; first, huge disaster do not occur often and governments usually do not allocate much budget to them, and second, a disaster mitigation policy often requires a prior design because of its close connection with the city design, and continuous efforts to share necessary knowledge to local communities. This presentation suggests a holistic approach, which emphasizes the importance to situate resilience policy to the general development policy, as a key to build future policy of disaster mitigation.