Methods and process: practical and institutional constraints

During the interviews, a number of institutional (e.g. donor-driven funding for CCA) and organisational (e.g. lack of internal scientific capacity) constraints emerged, however directly related to the process of hazard assessment were a series of assumptions and decisions made by agencies and individuals that influence the degree to which the assessment of multi-hazards is incorporated in the design of PHVCAs (see Figure 5.2). Designing tools to address risks through a DRR or CCA lens negates the claim that they naturally capture all hazards.

The process of assessment is highly qualitative and adopts a fairly short-term perspective, owing to the reliance upon community knowledge. Moreover, hazard prioritisation is based upon what is perceived to be the greatest threat relative to the community and NGO’s capacities to address it. As such, there is a balance between ensuring actionable results and safeguarding sufficiently rigorous analysis; however, it was apparent that the balance would often shift in favour of action at the expense of thorough analysis of multi-hazards.

Participatory research is designed to be unstructured and emergent, yet this creates difficulties for the NGO in the sense that they are managing a tension between the influences of the donor, their own organisation’s remits and capacity to address the range of threats the community identify, as well as ensuring that the process is led by the community.

194 Figure 5.2 A stacked Venn diagram demonstrating the influences on the process of multi-hazard assessment, which range from the donor driven need to address DRR or CCA, the remit of organisations and the biases and assumptions of toolkit developers, implementers and communities that all influence the extent to which multi-hazards will be sufficiently assessed. These factors influence the extent to which science and appropriate analytical scales are adopted.

The PHVCA approach might be suitable for participatory action research, which focuses upon ownership by the community and transformative results, but there is perhaps a need to question whether primarily social science research methods allow for a sufficiently thorough assessment of multi-hazards and scenarios for occurrence. The emphasis upon qualitative approaches is embedded within the social science research methods adopted, but, it is misleading to liken participatory approaches solely with qualitative data (see Chambers, 1997:

135). Furthermore, the Kenyan representative from INGO C noted that partners were asking for more quantitative methods to conduct PHVCA. Whilst there is concern that the process of assessment does not become too focused on data collection⁴⁵, coping strategies are affected by the physical characteristic of hazards, thus detailed hazard (e.g. flood depth) and vulnerability (e.g. height of home foundations) data are required (McCall and Peters-Guarin,

45 DRR Consultant

Institutional influences and

paradigms

Organisational remits

Biases and assumptions

Multi-hazard assessments

195 2012). Five⁴⁶ of the interviewees in the Philippines noted the need for detailed analysis and the avoidance of collecting very general information.

One interviewee⁴⁷ noted that it is not possible to develop a tool that addresses everything; so, given the reliance on good facilitation, perhaps emphasis needs to be upon identifying what skills and training staff require to conduct multi-hazard assessments. This was partly recognised by the Conservation INGO in their decision to develop a training package rather than a toolkit and the fact that some in-country interviewees emphasised the process of PHVCA rather than tools. Head Office interviewees noted that training on tools is important;

however these interviewees noted that budgets and allocation of time for this has been overlooked in the past. Periods of training were described as ranging from a couple of days to ten days, with agencies describing varying experiences, including an instance when partners refused training⁴⁸.

Lastly, interviewees were reflexive and very mindful of the different sources of influence and bias upon the PHVCA. These influences were either noted by the interviewees or observed by the interviewer can be divided into four sources: the organisation, partners, individual staff (e.g. toolkit developers, project managers, etc.) and communities. At the same time, in all but a few cases interviewees were less aware of how they might adversely affect the process because of what they were failing to provide. NGOs were noted to be generally comprised of social, rather than physical or natural, scientists and therefore might not be in a position to provide the community with the additional information they require in order for them to identify and prioritise hazard risk. The acknowledgement of this was reflected by the fact that Philippine NGO staff emphasised the need to engage with the scientific community.

46 WASH-DRR Coordinator (INGO Ph1); Executive Director (Local NGO Ph1); Executive Director (Local NGO Ph3); Adviser – DRR (INGO E)

47 Programme policy Management Team Member – DRR (INGO F)

48 Adviser – DRR (INGO B)

196 5.3.2 Sources and perceptions of knowledge

Participatory action research is supposed to place local knowledge on equal footing with external scientific knowledge (McCall and Peters-Guarin, 2012), however there is an almost total reliance on community-based knowledge for the purposes of hazard assessment. The knowledge underpinning hazard assessments comprises the past and present hazards as experienced by those at risk, owing to: (1) the perception that the community are the most knowledgeable about their situation and (2) the philosophy of participatory action research, which emphasises community empowerment.

It was surprising to discover that interviewees also value natural science, but it became apparent during the course of the interviews that engagement with scientists and the utilisation of science is fairly limited and largely not incorporated in the assessment of hazards by those at Head Office. Engagement with science is more accepted amongst in-country interviewees, particularly those interviewed in the Philippines, but is lacking owing to practical barriers to scientific engagement. Therefore, in the context of the Philippines a third factor can be added to the above list: a lack of alternative sources of information.

Despite the growing awareness of the value of science, scientific engagement is hindered by the assumptions of individuals and organisations. Of particular note is the apparent uncertainty implied throughout the interviews of how to use science and, in particular, the lack of understanding of what science is most useful for the purposes of hazard assessment. The perceptions of science shared by interviewees represent the assumptions and understanding of a group of largely non-scientists, a reflexive observation made by only a small number of interviewees. Interviewees seemed particularly concerned about future disasters and risk, but their concern does not seem to embed a multi-hazard perspective owing to the assumption that DRR looks historically and because Head Office interviewees are making the assumption that emergent threats and unknown future risk are purely driven by climate change.

197 Through the tendency to discuss science solely in the context of climate change, science was perceived by Head Office interviewees primarily as an opportunity to better anticipate future climate risk rather than for the purpose of better understanding the past and current hazard situation, which are primarily drawn from community experience. This was due to interviewees’ concerns over how to plan for a particularly uncertain future and because community knowledge may be redundant for this purpose. However, couching science solely in terms of climate change is hindering the wider application of science for understanding and attributing causes of natural hazards and environmental change. There appeared a relatively poor acknowledgement of other ‘science’ that might be more applicable and easier to use than the very uncertain and poor resolution of climate science. Study A interviewees also appeared to make the assumption that future risk from geophysical hazards is more predictable, yet the reliance on community knowledge means that they are perhaps naïve in this assumption.

In the Philippines, value was placed on existing scientific information, such as hazard maps and expert opinions, which with good communication could be transformed into something useable. Thus, there is an opportunity to engage with science and scientists in more relevant ways. In the Philippines, they acknowledged that scientific information is not often at the scale required for community-based analysis but by sharing information provided by the communities, scientists could help determine why disasters occur. Although more appreciated by in-country staff (across studies A and B), the integration of science is limited owing to problems related to access to and availability of useful science along with the politics involved regarding sharing information and the source of science. Likewise, the science does not appear to be coming to NGOs; it is largely up to the initiative of individuals, through their informal contacts, to access the information required.

198 It was emphasised in all but one case⁴⁹ that the PHVCA process should begin with community knowledge before being compared with the science. However, this sequencing of knowledge needs to ensure an unbiased inclusion of science (i.e. that it does not serve to simply justify the hazards that have been prioritised) and, as identified by one interviewee, adopt an iterative approach. Whilst the application of scientific expertise in the context of identifying technical solutions is vital, it is imperative that the analysis of hazard is as rigorous and objective as possible and not preconditioned by a priori defined projects and programmes.

Given the perception amongst Head Office interviewees that scientists should not or, in the case of in-country interviewees, are unlikely to visit communities, practitioners manage the external information and knowledge being provided for and utilised during the PHVCA process.

As such, if they have preconceived ideas about what hazards should be considered or what science is actually of value, biases will emerge. Whether they have the knowledge and skills to provide the necessary science was taken for granted by Head Office interviews, but one Philippine interviewee⁵⁰ particularly emphasised that science can be communicated by non-scientists.

The practical (real) and perceived barriers to the integration of science are summarised in Table 5.3. These are divided into the barriers perceived by the interviewees and those that the researcher identified as hindering the incorporation of science into NGO assessments of hazard.

49 Senior Climate Change Researcher (Research Institute B)

50 Senior Programme Officer 1 (INGO Ph2)

199 Table 5.3 Noted and perceived constraints and barriers upon the integration and utilisation of science;

text in italics indicates Head Office (UK) respondents, bold text represents Philippine respondents and bold and italicised text indicates when representatives from both groups mentioned these.

Identifying