IGEM Report 1: 2017-18 - THE CYCLONE DEBBIE REVIEW

The Cyclone Debbie Review

Positioning the community as active and empowered stakeholders, rather than victims or aid recipients, recognises the value that they can, and do, add to emergency management. 31 Benefits from greater community participation can include: • Ability to tap into a key resource. Harnessing the collective knowledge, skills and experience

Underlying precepts

“The most resilient societies will also be those that unleash the full potential of individuals … to create and cooperate. Such societies will be moving with, rather than against, historical currents, drawing upon the ever-expanding scope of human agency and skill to shape the future. In all societies, even in the bleakest circumstances, there will be those who choose to improve the welfare, happiness, and security of others — and who will use transformative technologies to do so at scale. The opposite will be true as well — destructive forces will be empowered as never before. The central choice before governments and societies is how to blend individual, collective, and national endowments in a way that yields sustainable security, prosperity, and hope.” 32

of a community will enhance. • Better planning. Community members will always know their community better than external parties. This information can complement external data. • Shared responsibility. Greater involvement in decisions will in turn improve implementation, sustainability and ownership of outcomes. • Maximises scarce resources. By utilising communities to identify resources available, finite resources can be better utilised. • Greater two-way information. Processes where communities and experts work alongside each other enhances knowledge transfer, supports the development of responses that are ‘fit for purpose’, and increases local problem-solving capacity.

Responses to the community survey commissioned for this review provide us with a window into the very real experiences of individuals impacted by these events. The community survey data was used alongside other data sources in informing the analysis and discussion across a range of emerging themes in this review report.

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3 UNDERLYING PRECEPTS

Public value and mobilising community