Supporting and Empowering Municipal Functions and Staff
A mega disaster can destroy government offices and kill public officials. In the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE), many municipalities in Tohoku suffered serious damage to their office buildings and incurred considerable staff losses, which hampered their disaster response timing and effectiveness. To compensate for this, many kinds of partnership arrangement were formed between localities in the affected areas and their counterparts in unaffected areas. Formalizing these partnership arrangements and building local government capacities to deal with emergency situations are key success factors for developed and developing countries alike. One of the most interesting developments after March 11 was that a variety of partnership arrangements evolved between local governments affected by the disaster and those that were unaffected. The roles that local governments must play in the aftermath of a disaster can be critical. But clear roles and responsibilities must first be assigned to each tier of government, specifying what needs to be done by which level in case of a disaster, and to strengthen their capacities accordingly.
Summary: | A mega disaster can destroy government
offices and kill public officials. In the Great East Japan
Earthquake (GEJE), many municipalities in Tohoku suffered
serious damage to their office buildings and incurred
considerable staff losses, which hampered their disaster
response timing and effectiveness. To compensate for this,
many kinds of partnership arrangement were formed between
localities in the affected areas and their counterparts in
unaffected areas. Formalizing these partnership arrangements
and building local government capacities to deal with
emergency situations are key success factors for developed
and developing countries alike. One of the most interesting
developments after March 11 was that a variety of
partnership arrangements evolved between local governments
affected by the disaster and those that were unaffected. The
roles that local governments must play in the aftermath of a
disaster can be critical. But clear roles and
responsibilities must first be assigned to each tier of
government, specifying what needs to be done by which level
in case of a disaster, and to strengthen their capacities accordingly. |
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