ABSTRACT
The chapter claims that disaster risk reduction needs disaster risk governance (risk governance) to translate risk reduction processes and decisions into collective action among multiple actors. In this book, I use disaster risk governance to mean “the specific arrangements that societies put in place to manage their disaster risk within a broader context of risk governance.” However, as the chapter will show, the concept’s definition is far from settled because its root concept, “governance,” is contested. Governance is used as the central focus of this book because of its importance in regulating the multiple actors and processes around disaster risk reduction. I argue that weak governance is a disaster risk driver linked to many other risk drivers, including poverty, inequality, poor planning, and development, and that we need to understand it, facilitate it and leverage it to improve disaster outcomes.
