Community is necessary, but still be inadequate: lessons-learned on CDBRMs

Case studies of Wiang Sa District, Nan Province and Mae Sod Municipality, Tak Province in Thailand 1
This article is aimed to point out that the popular Community-based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM)
that many countries all over the world including Thailand, using this approach to be a key concept to prepare any
potentially-affected communities is necessary but still be inadequate and not relevant with changing community.
Moreover, the flooding are borderless, they have not occurred just only in any specific areas. This case study for
villages affected with flooding as many communities in a physical boundary have got the impact simultaneously.
Also, the impact reduction or risk tackling conducted by only one village is seemed impossible in reality. Therefore,
better management mechanism and information technology utilization are capable to develop and extend a more
effective disaster management.

1. Changing communities
For Thai society, the most common viewpoint among Thais whenever they have heard about the
community as it will be a rural scene or a village with a demographic boundary or any agricultural areas and
habitats of low-income, low-education farmers who could not access into modern technology that is a static (or
alike still) picture. This kind of perception is seemed to follow a study of Ted K. Bradshaw (1997) mentioned that
most of community development tasks, theories and models were still lacking of their dynamic to catch up with
todays more complicated society. Many tools and methods were still fit for societies in the past. Also, most of
development agencies are still using the technocratic approach on problem solving (that is solved by mechanical
approach emphasized on techniques and unique skills) that focusing the problem(s) on static, nothing was changed
along the time, but the problem solving would gradually solved those problems until all of them were completely
solved (Zaid Hassan, 2014). In reality, all today communities have changed a lot in different perspectives of socioeconomic and politics. Apichat Sathitniramai, Yukti Mukdawijit and Niti Phakwakarapan (2013) pointed that Thai
society along these two decades has initiated a new social class called the new middle-class that was about 40
percent of total households in Thailand. In 2009 there were about 10 percent of total population whose their annual
income below the national poverty line. That social change shifted the social relationship from a supporting
relationship into a networking relationship of horizontal characteristic with high complexity, flexibility and
variability. Meanwhile, the farmer society with similar socio-economic status, relying on each another without any
conflicts under the common ground of their local community folkway had ended since 1992 (Thitiya Lao-an,
2010).
This phenomenon may be briefed as the rural community is not the minority society of the modern
production world, but it is becoming all todays production sources as industrial estates, sites for small and largesized manufacturers, agro-industries, real estates and temporary residences as apartments. Moreover, most of the
production structures have been changed by not depended on only the agricultural production but shifted into
modern productions and services. New businesses as a variety of tourist accommodations, eco and cultural
tourisms have rapidly boomed as internet becomes a key factor of this rapid change. At present, the (social)
structures of both rural and urban areas have been changing very fast.
All lesson-learned extracts mentioned in this article were synthesized from those communities with diverse
people of different careers and socio-economic status as they might not be relatives to each another, but they have
their high individualism and can access and learn more new technologies without any struggles.
This article will present 8 lessons learned distracted from the supporting project for local community
becoming a center of preparedness on disasters2 to unveil the disaster preparedness approach collaborating with
community as a base has needed to widen the typical CBDRM concept. They are related into 3 major issues as
they are
1) Lesson-learned related to community
2) Lesson-learned related to data and technology
3) Lesson-learned related to local authorities
1 Weeraboon

Wisartsakul, Puey Ungphakorn School of Development Studies, Thammasat University Thailand, presented in
International Conference Nurturing University community Engagement Integration, Innovation and Impact, Gokarna Forest
Resort 25-27 April, 2016
2 This project are operated by Local Development Institute (NGO) since 2012 - present in Nan, Tak, Lopburi, Pitsanulok, Loi,
Ubonratchatani, Choomporn and SongKhla Province.

2. Brief profile for case study sites

Mae Sod municipality, Tak province is a town next to the borderline with Myanmar. The municipality is consisted
of 20 sub-communities with a diversity of ethnical groups that have migrated to earn their living together. The
repetitive disasters are derived from the misuse of land properties by changing the waterways, reducing the capacity
of reservoirs and behavior pattern of living on littering in the waterways that have caused the almost annual flooding
in Mae Sod.
Wiang Sa district, Nan province is a combination of rural and urban community that consisted of 17 local authorities.
Only 7 sub-districts (of 8 local authorities) have affected from the floods. There are 7 waterways surrounded the
study area and most populations are the typical locals working on agriculture by growing maize as the major crop.
There are some geographical problems because it is a flood plain at the water end that has caused continuous floods.

3. Lesson-learned related to community

Lesson 1: Communitys perspective and Tools
Even though, the approach of CBDRM pointed that there are a variety of implications in community from
the geography, career, or common targets. Moreover, community in the reality has its different characteristics
especially in social and career aspects3. For the functions, the responsible supporting unit as the Department of
Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (Ministry of Interior, Thailand) has assumed that a community is a village and
each village has their own similarities as same occupation. This misperception may be derived from the long-term
concept of community in Thai society. Furthermore, some tools used in the CBDRM approach such as production
calendar and seasonal calendar are suitable tools for any agriculture-based communities that are different from
suburban or urban communities. These latter communities have a variety of living lifestyles such as Mae Sod
municipality that having a big variety of residents; small and large-scaled businessmen, government officials and
farmers. However, this diversity is not a limitation on a collaboration initiating for disaster preparedness. Moreover
some analytical tools on socio-economic structure are still lacking of fine-detailed analysis such as the grouping of
farmers into the only one same group, but in fact they are more diverse among them. Also the existing survey tools
have not diversified the reality among those farmers.

3 http://www.adpc.net/igo/category/ID428/doc/2014-xCSf7I-ADPC-12handbk.pdf

pp.10-11 Chapter 2 Importance of Community

Based Disaster Risk Management

Lesson 2: Community is the vital base that needed to create a full participation
Following to the concept approach of CBDRM, data collecting for analyzing and developing a risk map
should be responsible by the local communities. But in reality, it has become a responsibility of any external
supporting organizations or an ad-hoc community committee on disaster management because it takes time for
running field operation. Regarding the current situation of those communities has not had their close relationship as
kinship to each another as before, not having same lifestyle. Thus, working with community with diverse people is
needed to initiate/set up participatory condition that will consume time and cannot follow the timeframe of external
agencies working on promoting community participatory. Even though they finally got a risk map, evacuation
routes, putting color stickers in the map showing which houses have their high risks or having some symbols such
as flag to put on their house representing the potential risk. However, those actions are still inadequate for providing
the effective management in the real situation.
The effective management in the disastrous situation must provoke all locals in the community to survey
and share their data for making all clear and correct data in each house located in the high-risk zones or flooding
areas, showing the number of total residents, elderlies, disabilities who are immobilized or bed-sored as well as their
names, their appearances that required for help and important tools that are in good condition, ready-to-use and
know how to use them. All of these data can be developed to be an effective proposal with responsible people and
clear guidelines for taking action in each case
Lesson 3: Decentralization on management with flexible structure not the typical formal government one
Connecting from the Lesson 1, the general advice following to the standard of CBDRM is searching for
any local organization in the community or setting up an ad-hoc committee to handle the disaster management or
an officially rescue team4 . However, it was shown that those typical structures were important but they were
inadequate and often not be ready for the sudden incidents. Utilizing the informal or existing social networking
structure, this choice will cover the areas in a variety of small sections that becoming more practical zoning as each
house in the high-risk disaster zones will know that they should collaborate with whom in their own zone, also with
local potential to help and support as soon as possible.

4. Lesson-learned related to data and technology

Lesson 4: Diverse data resources can make better understanding on disaster
According to the CBDRM approach that emphasizes on community data collecting with primary data such
as housing survey in the disaster-affected areas and utilizing the informal data from the locals experiences such as
previous disasters in the past and the level of previous flooding. For the leaders of Wiang Sa district in Nan, they
have observed the water level in the river or made phone calls to check with other local leaders network in the
watershed areas to predict when the floodwaters might run down to the district. Or in Mae Sod, they have utilized
their past experiences and conventional data to predict the cause of floods in the municipal area.
Lesson-learned extracted from the action showing that todays information technology is a big advantage
such as Google map and all secondary data of government units such as the run-off, precipitation volumes, all health
surveillance data on patient, medication, handicapped and elderly. also some free software programs are useful to
provide better understanding about the disaster as well as more accurate prediction and visualization (on the map)
for communication. Thus, the diversity and accuracy of all data have eliminated all beliefs and old concepts about
the cause of floods.
Lesson 5: Technology and Digital devices with high efficient
Following to the CBDRM approach, it does not prioritize on utilizing technology and digital devices.
However, most of villager leaders among those participating communities have used their reasonable-priced
smartphones. Regarding the lower price and popularity of smartphone at present, it can be utilized for various aspects
of disaster management. From the project experiences, they have been using smartphone as a camera captured the
affected sites such as any spots that blocked the water flow, utilizing the affected areas in the high-risk spots.

Examples are shown in CBDRM Manual for Community People (Thai) mentioned the establishment of Community
Committee on Disaster Prevention and Mitigation p.32
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B93vmvEycj5WU1hzdnBXZUMyY2M/edit
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Nonetheless, each capture will be recorded with its global positioning system that can be linked with the Google
map.
Moreover, they have been using Line application as a common space for sharing all notices for emergency,
sending some photos for discussion. This kind of informal common space has helped to reduce formal
communication in the governmental protocol system as it will be just for steady users.
It should be noted that after Thailand economic crisis in 1997, supporting agencies have also worked to
strengthen those communities such as CODI (Community Organization Development Institute) has promoted
knowledge and capability among village leaders to use GPS or even using GIS data for initiating their land and
forestry management. Those village leaders were capable to collaborate with local authorities officials and external
experts. The modern technology utilization in the hands of those local people and their community leaders is a leap
progress.

5. Lesson-learned related to local authorities

Lesson 6: Local authorities should collaborate as networking and connect to other governmental units
Guidelines for local authorities following to the CBDRM handbook5 have provided the comprehensive and
broad roles of local authority as follows (1) strengthening the community capacity on disaster preparedness (2)
developing policies, work-plans and regulations, also resources assistance that will strengthen the launch of
preparedness, warning, assistance during the disaster and rehabilitation and (3) promoting the disaster management
into the mainstreaming of strategic plan for alleviating the poverty in the local development plan.
Those above-mentioned three suggested roles were seemed to be something that the local authority could
implement by themselves, but still do not know well how work together (among local authorities and other
government agencies) as the strong network. Wiang Sa district in Nan province as example, the local authorities
both 7 Sub-district Administrative Organizations (SAO) and a municipality tried to initiate a district-level networking
collaboration to accumulate all resources for preparedness in human resources, information and supplies for helping
each another as just one community or one sub-district cannot have strong capacity to tackle with local flooding in
their own sites. Moreover those SAOs try to work with local hospitals, district health organizations, provincial
irrigation office and provincial environmental office, then they have accessed to utilize updated data and information
for their local planning to reduce risks with more efficient preparedness.
Lesson 7: Reshaping of the role of local authority on Top-down assistance by initiating a self-dependent
community
The local politicians have managed the local authorities through the election, then all public services
including in-between and after the disasters are their unavoidable choices and might be another kind of popularity
for the next upcoming election. On the contrary, this kind of typical culture has implanted into the public mind as
they will be only recipients of assistance and keep requesting from local authority before self-supporting. In reality,
those local politicians and local authorities have realized that they could not help all affected groups just-in-time in
the disastrous situation and always got strongly requested from the communities through mass media.
Relieving the strong pressure among the popularity of local politicians, local authoritys missions and selfsupporting of community is strengthening the power of self-dependence among those communities through
intensive community participatory approach. This approach may reduce the local politicians self-pressure on helping
their local people as well as the local authorities on providing full coverage assistance to the locals.
Lesson 8: Collaboration with the business sector
Meanwhile, collaborating with the local business sector is still an unclear issue on how to handle it. There
is no any recommendation or experiences from any international organizations or even Thailands Department of
Disaster Prevention and Mitigation. The lesson-learned extraction from both projects at Wiang Sa district and Mae
Sod municipality have revealed that collaborating with business sector is not easy because this sector has a lot of
resources and capacities as they can handle the flooding situation by themselves. Also in term of their investment
for the public in case of disaster or flooding in the case studies, it was just helping each another (case by case) more
than having any strategic investment for risk reduction or for developing poverty alleviation.

Shesk Kanta Kafle and Zubair Murshed (2006) COMMUNITY-BASED DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT FOR LOCAL
AUTHORITIES http://www.unisdr.org/files/3366_3366CBDRMShesh.pdf
5

In addition to those above-mentioned lesson-learned extracts from implementation, there are some
interesting issues that may become both important Pros and Cons for implementing under the CBDRM concept
and approach that may not achieve as proposed. These following notices are
1) Mind set of Thai people as many of them have never realized and concerned about risk
2) Many Thai people preferred emergency responses and recovery to mitigation and preparedness.
3) Interference of the central government through large-scaled construction without any consulting with local
communities and local authorities.

Reference
English language
Ted K.Bradshaw (1997) Complex Community Development Project: Collaboration, Comprehensive Programs
and Community Coalitions in Complex Society. The California Community Program (CCP)
Hassan, Z. (2014) The Social Labs Revolution: A New Approach to Solving our Most Complex Challenges. BerrettKoehler Publishers
Imelda Abarquez and Zubair Murshed (2004) COMMUNITY-BASED DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT:
Field Practitioners Handbook. ADPC.
http://www.adpc.net/igo/category/ID428/doc/2014-xCSf7I-ADPC-12handbk.pdf
Shesk Kanta Kafle and Zubair Murshed (2006) COMMUNITY-BASED DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT FOR
LOCAL AUTHORITIES.
http://www.unisdr.org/files/3366_3366CBDRMShesh.pdf
Thai language
Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation. Section5 Step 4 of Planning Process: Implementation.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B93vmvEycj5WU1hzdnBXZUMyY2M/edit
Apichat Sathitniramai, Yukti Mukdawijit and Niti Phakwakarapan (2013) Review on Thai Political Landscape.
Healthy Public Policy Program. Public Policy Institute, Chiang Mai University.
Thitiya Lao-an (2010) Economic Changes of the "Peasant Society" in Isan Region, from 1957-2007: A Case Study
of Kugasing Village, Roi Ed Province. Master Thesis on History. Chiang Mai.