NGO managed information system for disaster preparedness : a comparative study of two villages, Nagapattinam, India | |
| Author | Kumar, Arvind |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.RD-07-13 |
| Subject(s) | Emergency management--Information resources management--India Non-governmental organizations--India |
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Regional and Rural Development Planning |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | 'Disasters are on the rise' and the past two decades had witnessed the catastrophes across the globe and recently the tsunamis in developing countries including India. Coastal communities of Nagapattinam were severely affected and survived with huge social and economic loss. This has drawn attention of the policy makers and planners to institutionalize the disaster management into development planning. World Disaster Report, 2005 had focused on the flow of information throughout the disaster cycle, where information is crucial to build community resilient towards unpredictable and unprecedented nature of disasters. In this regard, scientific efforts alone, towards the establishment of the information system would be less vibrant, if it does not institutionalize the existing framework of development at all level. Realizing this many coordination fora have been initiated between local administration and NGOs to anticipate the information needs of range of stakeholders including community for the disaster preparedness. This study made an attempt to compare NGO managed information system for disaster preparedness with the existing local government supported system in two villages of Nagapattinam district in India with special focus on women, the elderly and persons with disabilities. The system comparison was based on the level of awareness, resource availability, preparedness and access to information sources in these two villages to highlight the gaps and loose links within and outside of the information network of NGO called NCRC. Stakeholder analysis was focused to measure the adequacy, reliability and utilization of information towards disaster preparedness. The overall analysis of the study shows that, NGO based information system from the district to village level has emerged as an alternative to the weak and poor information network supported by local government within the institutional framework of Panchayati Raj. It was found that, in terms of awareness and preparedness these villages performed equally with low level of satisfaction. However, significance differences have been observed in terms of resource availability and access to information source. At the same time lack of coordination among governmental agencies, NGOs and village level institutions like gram panchayats, fisheries unions, and community based organizations has shown the earnest need to institutionalize the information network towards disaster preparedness. NGO efforts to install information center at the village level has raised the issue of sustainability because of huge initial investments and high operating cost. However in the absence of skilled human resource, it is difficult for the community to manage the center by their own. Mobility of the elderly and person with disabilities to access the information related to relief, rehabilitation and preparedness were restricted due to the distant location of the information center. |
| Year | 2007 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development (SERD) |
| Department | Department of Development and Sustainability (DDS) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Rural Development, Gender and Resources (RD) |
| Chairperson(s) | Ahmad, Mokbul Morshed; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Routray, Jayant K.;Schmidt-Vogt, Dietrich;Nawaz, Falak; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | State Bank of lndia;AIT Fellowship; |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2007 |