COMMUNITY CONSULTATION IN RISK MANAGEMENT: EXAMPLES FROM NIGERIA

Abstract

Disaster and risk experience remains a global pandemic. However, community as an embodiment of stakeholders is an essential aspect to managing the global risk exposures. The argument is that the immediate community plays a vital role in risk management. The study methodology used in exploring community consultations in risk management was through the triangulation of researchers’ experience and a sectoral approach which entail the convergent parallel mixed-method of community consultations. Secondary data was obtained from some selected community consultation programmes on risk management organised by selected risk management agencies in Nigeria’s South-Eastern and Northern regions. The Youth Transformational Leadership Collaborative Initiative within the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), National Youth Service Corps and the NEMA-Military Joint Task Force, and the Borno State residents’ programme reports iterate that communities are frontline stakeholders in risk management. A case study of community disaster risk management in some African countries was also documented. Extensive consultations with critical stakeholders coupled with a healthy sustained collaboration among the stakeholders led to improved coordination in the fight against insurgency in Borno state communities. It was identified that coordinated information dissemination between communities and the Task Force was an effective mechanism for community policing and risk reductions. It was identified that a low level of public awareness of disaster risk, unavailability of relevant data, weak capacity and inadequate personnel, lack of political will, amongst others, were the challenges to community consultation in risk management in Nigeria. The study proposed a community-based disaster risk management approach, which entails intensive and extensive consultation to build people’s capacity of coping with disaster risks towards creating safer and resilient communities.