On dedicated institutions and funding to support disaster risk reduction: Reflections on local instrumentation in Chile

Abstract

Stakeholders often justify limited disaster risk reduction (DRR) action by citing insufficient funding and a lack of dedicated legislation and institutional infrastructure. This has changed thanks to the Hyogo and Sendai Frameworks, as national governments have created dedicated DRR ministries or agencies, resulting in widespread policy adoption and funding increases. Evidence shows these institutionalisations can instrumentalise DRR under neoliberal agendas driven by international donors. This article, however, highlights how the fixation on dedicated laws, institutions and funding has produced a siloed DRR policy. Using Chile as a case, and the implementation of the Law 21.364, it describes the instrumentation created to deal with disasters at the local level, including DRR and emergency plans, as well as new functions and municipal structures. Given Chile’s subnational governance, municipalities are forced to self-fund a policy issue that is not prioritised, and it leads to the separation of risk reduction, climate change and development into discrete sectors. This obsession with everything-should-be-dedicated results in a fragmentation that diverts attention from the structural causes of risk creation embedded in neoliberal development.
Contribution: The analysis emphasises the need to rethink dedicated DRR institutionalism towards integrated, adaptive approaches addressing underlying risk drivers rather than isolated sectors.