CONCLUSION SEVEN

Civil society organisations aren’t systematically sharing the real-life community experience of disasters with national and international decision-makers.

A third of civil society organisations do little to highlight community experiences of disaster risk.

Civil society organisations are not empowered to bring community voices to national platforms for disaster risk reduction.

Civil society organisations rarely have a permanent seat at national platforms on disaster risk reduction.

Some fear for their safety if they speak out about the struggles people face. Others, who have failed at influencing policy and practice in the past now have a sense of hopelessness.

A number of civil society organisations don’t know about the disaster risk reduction policy commitments their government has made, and what role they can play.

Knowledge sharing between civil society organisations and communities is happening, but sporadically.

In certain regions local organisations compete with each other to be heard, rather than collaborate. Sometimes civil society organisations will present opinions that fit with their mandate and area of interest, but not necessarily represent the full range of community opinions.

Even when organisations do get the space to amplify community voices, they’re not always listened to.

Civil society is rarely seen as credible by government decision-makers. Indeed it may be considered a threat to business as usual.

In some countries, decision makers do not prioritise risk reduction, and only act when disasters hit. There is also a lack of adaptive capacities and change management skills in many government departments, discouraging them from adopting new approaches to risk reduction.

All Views from the Frontline data is publicly available to explore online – with options to disaggregate by country, respondent type and more. You can also find out about the survey methodology.