Additional links to CRA, CBDRM and Participation materials

Image: Center for Disaster Preparedness

This section provides additional web based links to Community Risk Assessment (CRA), Community Based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM) and Participation materials.

CRA forms part of community based disaster risk management: once a community has assessed the risks it is facing and an action plan has been developed, disaster risk reduction measures need to be taken. The application of CBDRM is itself 'nested' within Participation and Participatory Action Research (PAR). PAR has become an invaluable and much respected (though not uncontested or infallible) approach to development in urban and rural communities all over the world.

By providing links to these additional resources this section aims to underline that CRA methods should not be seen in isolation and perceived purely as technical tools. The methods and tools proposed here belong to a long tradition of participatory approaches, which have substantially contributed to more effective developmental work at the community level over the past 30 years.

The 'big picture' of CRA and CBDRM is thus community development. Properly speaking, all risk reduction activity is an integral part of development work, and, in fact, the converse is also true. Good development work also reduces risk.

The section is organised in two parts, namely:

• Community Based Disaster Risk Management (information on CRA and implementation of risk reduction actions at the community level, such as community based disaster preparedness, mitigation and recovery)
• Participation (key websites, publications and conceptual articles and information on participatory action research and leading thinkers)