All posts in Environment and Disasters

Institutional Capacity Assessment of the Government of The Bahamas to effectively implement the mandates of the New Disaster Risk Management Act

To bolster Disaster Risk Management (DRM) efforts, the Government of The Bahamas enacted the Disaster Risk Management Act in 2022 (DRM Act). This legislative move signifies a significant shift towards focusing on disaster risk over post-event responses. The objective is to streamline functions and eliminate redundancy among key entities—the Disaster Management Unit under the Office of the Prime Minister, National Emergency Management Agency, and the Disaster Reconstruction Authority. These entities are merged into a singular body, the Disaster Risk Management Authority, aligning with the new mandate.

The DRM Authority assumes a pivotal role as the coordinator for disaster and climate risk management in The Bahamas. To ensure the effective execution of its responsibilities amid the challenges posed by climate change and other external factors, the new DRM Authority requires strong organizational structure and operational procedures to ensure it remains financially viable and has capacity to fulfill its mandate,

In April 2023, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) commissioned Momentus Global to conduct an Institutional Capacity Assessment of the Government of The Bahamas to Effectively Implement the Mandates of the New Disaster Risk Management, with IRMA/Lezlie Morinière as Team leader and Marilise Turnbull as Institutional capacity strengthening specialist.

Exploring the Evolving Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus: A Meta-Evaluation

Since 2018, a growing number of evaluations have explored how organizations have adopted humanitarian-development-peace (HDP) or double nexus approaches. These evaluations delve into progress, barriers and ways to improve connectedness and complementarity of humanitarian, development and Peace sectors.

Commissioned by ALNAP, Lezlie Moriniere (IRMA co-founding partner) worked with a wide team to conduct a meta-evaluation on the HDP nexus. IRMA support to this study included the tireless efforts of Marilise Turnbull and associates Agathe Mazars and Rachael Hinkel. 

The paper curates findings from 90 evaluations undertaken between 2018 and April 2022, exploring how organizations have advanced their version of a nexus approach. It provides insights into the operationalization and implementation of the triple nexus in practice, offering lessons learned and trends for the wider sector.

ALNAP will conduct a webinar on 7 December featuring the presentation of the mapping and synthesis paper, followed by a moderated panel discussion on actionable steps to advance HDP nexus ways of working.

Click here to register to the webinar.

Click here to explore the paper.

Scoping: Integration of Animal Protection in Disaster Risk Management

The number and intensity of natural hazards has increased exponentially in recent decades. While headlines highlight the impact on people and infrastructure, animals are also affected by these events and subsequent disasters. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction represented a significant evolution in risk management, including understanding the need to expand the focus beyond on people and physical infrastructure to include the protection of livelihoods and productive assets, including livestock and other animals. The conflict in Ukraine has also highlighted concerns and lessons related to both companion animals and livestock during conflict. Yet, despite a growing willingness to include animals in national disaster management plans, there remains a big gap in understanding and in implementing animal-sensitive risk management/programming.

In order to better understand the current status of how animal welfare is considered within disaster risk management, the Humane Society International (HSI) Europe has commissioned IRMA to undertake a comprehensive scoping exercise to assess the current state of animal protection within disaster risk management legislation and practices within the EU and four member states (Poland, Germany, Romania and Italy). The scoping exercise explores the extent to which disaster-related EU and member state Legislation includes animal protection and what good practices in disaster risk management are the most sensitive or protective of animals. Building on this, IRMA will support HSI Europe to identify key opportunities to positively contribute to this emerging and expanding area of DRM.

The IRMA team is made up of Lezlie Moriniere, TL, Hannah Vaughan-Lee (Research Lead) and Ambre Caillot (Ethologist/Research Associate).