Creating a National Authority for Disaster Risk Management

Abstract

The genesis of the functional system to manage natural phenomena dates back more than four decades, since the Civil Defense System of 1972, passing through SINADECI in 1991, until reaching the current National Disaster Risk Management System in 2011.
This concern among the different governments is due to the geographical location of Peru, which is in the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, resulting in several nature-caused hazards. Thus, as explained above, different organizations were established for this purpose. However, the latest and current system is the most structured, having preventive, reactive, and corrective management as components. These make up the framework where the seven (7) processes that are carried out at all levels of government are defined. This is where the difficulty of being able to efficiently coordinate the actions to integrate these seven processes begins since they are divided and in charge of two different entities, currently attached to the Ministry of Defense, such as the National Institute of Civil Defense (INDECI) and the National Center for Estimation, Prevention and Reduction of Disaster Risk (CENEPRED). However, they are also not governing bodies, rather they are only technical organizations that must submit their plans and strategies to the Vice Ministry of Territorial Governance, delaying their approval and therefore planning at the subnational levels.
Another aspect to take into consideration is that there are scientific entities that are providers of information to the system, but they are located in different ministries, making it difficult to make quick and timely decisions to obtain an effective response to a natural phenomenon.
It is for this reason that to articulate the processes and look at the system with a vision of sustainable cities, it is necessary to have a National Disaster Risk Management Authority with a Ministry rank. It will monitor the actions that will be carried out in all system components, preventing construction permits from being given in risk areas, with suitable and certified public servants working in the system, as well as establishing processes that are efficiently aligned with a territorial approach so that peoples vulnerability to natural hazards can be reduced.