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Early alert and community involvement: approach for disaster risk reduction in Rwanda

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Abstract

Natural disasters’ socioeconomic and environmental losses are predicted to rise, unless early warning, full stakeholders and community involvement in the mitigation, adaptation and risk reduction are squarely engaged. The objective of this study is to assess the impact of early alert and community involvement in disaster risk reduction in Nyabihu District, Western Rwanda. A quota sampling method was employed to obtain a sample of 240 households from 12 sectors of Nyabihu District in 2015. A structured questionnaire was used, and the field data collected were computed by using SPSS16.0 for Windows. The results indicated that, as stated by respondents, the frequently experienced disasters are floods (51.25%) and landslides (42.08%). However, as asserted by 68% of informants, disaster-related information is communicated through radio channels after the occurrence, while 29% of them declared that disaster information is disseminated before occurrence, which implies the rising level of risk vulnerability and incidences to the community due to lack of early warning. A lower community participation in disaster risk preparedness and mitigation was noticed (6.2%) while 31.6% mentioned taking part in activities aimed at coping with the aftermath (adaptation). Moreover, disaster risk reduction government policies are preferentially implemented (42.9%) other than considering the community’s knowledge (14.1%). To halt the gradual increase in disasters’ associated risks and losses, it is suggested to introduce disaster-related training across the community, introduce disaster courses from elementary schools and integrate the community in decision-making process.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully thank the Univeristy of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) for the Scholarship awarded and the Xinjiang Key Laboratory of Water Cycle and Utilization in Arid Zone for its remarkable assistance through the Grant No. 2012CB956204 provided. Authors also thank local community of Nyabihu District for its participation and provision of the needed information which made this study feasible.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 818 South Beijing Road, Ürümqi, 830011, Xinjiang, China

    Lamek Nahayo, Christophe Mupenzi, Alphonse Kayiranga, Fidele Karamage, Felix Ndayisaba, Enan Muhire Nyesheja & Lanhai Li

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Lamek Nahayo, Christophe Mupenzi, Alphonse Kayiranga, Fidele Karamage, Felix Ndayisaba & Enan Muhire Nyesheja

  3. University of Lay Adventists of Kigali (UNILAK), POB Box 6392, Kigali, Rwanda

    Lamek Nahayo, Christophe Mupenzi, Alphonse Kayiranga, Fidele Karamage, Felix Ndayisaba & Enan Muhire Nyesheja

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  1. Lamek Nahayo
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Correspondence to Lanhai Li.

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Nahayo, L., Mupenzi, C., Kayiranga, A. et al. Early alert and community involvement: approach for disaster risk reduction in Rwanda. Nat Hazards 86, 505–517 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-016-2702-5

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