After great disasters: How six countries managed community recovery

This report identifies lessons from six countries that have faced significant disaster recovery challenges and employed different management approaches: China, New Zealand, Japan, India, Indonesia, and the United States.

The authors offer the following recovery recommendations that reflect the set of core principles of primacy of information, stakeholder involvement, and transparency:

• Enhance existing government structures and systems to promote information flow and collaboration.
• Emphasise data management, communication, transparency, and accountability.
• Plan and act simultaneously involving continuous monitoring, evaluation, and correcting.
• Budget for the costs of communication and planning. Increase capacity and empower the governmental levels closest to the disaster to implement actions.
• Avoid permanent relocation of residents and communities except in rare instances when public safety and welfare are at risk, and only with the full participation of residents.
• Although speed is important, reconstruction should not be a race.