Disaster recovery and reconstruction in Italy - A legal and policy survey

This report forms a key part of a wider research project on ‘Law and Disaster Recovery and Reconstruction’ conducted by IFRC Disaster Law and based on a previous literature review on the topic. The wider project aims to identify and collect existing regulatory models to inform the development of a set of evidence-based recommendations on how to improve domestic legislation in the sector. This is in line with the overall mission of IFRC Disaster Law – to provide technical support to governments on the development of effective disaster risk management (DRM) law, in coordination with National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. In particular, the work on recovery and reconstruction fills a gap in the set of advocacy tools developed by IFRC Disaster Law over the last few years.

The study focuses on Italy and builds on both a desk-based survey of relevant legislation on recovery and reconstruction and a series of consultations with key institutional stakeholders. It was not possible to collect and describe all normative acts that may be relevant for the activities carried out during recovery and reconstruction in this study. Such a gigantic mapping effort would not help to achieve the report’s main goal, which is to identify good practice, main obstacles and potential recommendations based on the Italian legislative and institutional model. Instead, the study looks at how different regulatory acts issued by different bodies can effectively be combined and implemented as part of an overall system of post-disaster governance.