Chapter 2 Government Roles in Community-Based Disaster Risk Reduction

The community plays a crucial role in disaster risk reduction (DRR). The Hyogo Declaration adopted at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction held in Kobe in 2005 stresses that strengthening community-level capacities to reduce disaster risk at the local level is especially needed ( UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction [UNISDR], 2005 ). Following the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011 in Japan, community-based organizations (CBOs) have conducted various activities, such as searching and rescuing victims, closing gates, monitoring tsunamis, assisting evacuation, firefighting, and operating evacuation shelters at the risk of their staff's lives, while local governments lost their staff and facilities in the functions of disaster management. Some 250 volunteer members of firefighting CBOs were dead or are still missing.