What does it take to mainstream disaster risk management in key sectors?

This guide outlines the requirements and strategies for mainstreaming disaster risk management (DRM) into key development sectors. It emphasizes that effective integration requires a supportive policy environment, leadership, and consistent financing. The guide provides specific recommendations for governments to alter institutional practices, enhance risk understanding, navigate the political nature of mainstreaming, and build strategic partnerships across government levels and the private sector.

• Effective mainstreaming of disaster risk management (DRM) into development policy requires several core components: a supportive policy environment, leadership, knowledge of relevant risks, context-appropriate risk management techniques, innovation, and consistent financing.
• To mainstream DRM, governments should focus on altering institutional practices by reducing compartmentalisation through small-scale strategic coordination, including mainstreaming in the remit of key officials, providing training for ministry planning staff, and creating incentives for action.
• Governments can enhance risk understanding by mandating risk evaluation via legislation, promoting non-data intensive evaluation methods, ensuring policy planning is open to diverse stakeholders, sharing risk assessment tools, and collaborating with data users.
• Mainstreaming processes are highly political and require strategies to build momentum, such as mapping political risks, understanding the costs and benefits of mainstreaming, and giving a voice to the intended beneficiaries.
• Building effective partnerships is essential, specifically through vertical partnerships between different levels of government for risk analysis, creating private sector business opportunities in risk management, and increasing interaction between sectoral staff and experienced mainstreaming organisations.

APA

Kirbyshire, A., Bahadur, A., Khan, D., & Bhatt, M. (2014). What does it take to mainstream disaster risk management in key sectors? Climate and Development Knowledge Network. https://cdkn.org/resource/what-does-it-take-to-mainstream-disaster-risk-management-in-key-sectors

Chicago

Kirbyshire, Amy, Aditya Bahadur, Dina Khan, and Mihir Bhatt. What does it take to mainstream disaster risk management in key sectors? Climate and Development Knowledge Network, 2014. https://cdkn.org/resource/what-does-it-take-to-mainstream-disaster-risk-management-in-key-sectors.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Kirbyshire |first1=Amy |last2=Bahadur |first2=Aditya |last3=Khan |first3=Dina |last4=Bhatt |first4=Mihir |title=What does it take to mainstream disaster risk management in key sectors? |publisher=Climate and Development Knowledge Network |date=3 April 2014 |url=https://cdkn.org/resource/what-does-it-take-to-mainstream-disaster-risk-management-in-key-sectors |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{kirbyshire2014what, author = {Kirbyshire, Amy and Bahadur, Aditya and Khan, Dina and Bhatt, Mihir}, title = {{What does it take to mainstream disaster risk management in key sectors?}}, institution = {Climate and Development Knowledge Network}, year = {2014}, month = apr, url = {https://cdkn.org/resource/what-does-it-take-to-mainstream-disaster-risk-management-in-key-sectors}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }