ABSTRACT
Prevention phase in crisis management is usually framed as an activity undertaken before a disaster occurs; but more often it takes place after a catastrophe. This chapter illustrates how this happens following the experience after Hurricane Mitch in Honduras, identifying how prevention overlaps and connects with relief and recovery. The chapter starts examining the characteristics of the prevention phase as part of the continuum. It provides a historical account of relief and recovery phases conducted by national actors, the US, EU and Japan, focusing on ways they influenced and overlapped prevention-related activities. This shows how prevention took shape from the very beginning of the emergency and evolved in parallel to other phases. It then examines prevention-specific activities—specifically, the conformation of the disaster risk management (DRM) system and the conciliation of different strands of work relevant to DRM. Conflicting visions and inexperience with DRM, lack of in-country experience for international agencies, and time constraints and pressure mostly for political reasons, were significant challenges for the recovery and prevention phases. It is worth noting how small the share of prevention activities was in the initial plans for recovery, and how easily this became progressively displaced from the agenda afterward.
