Towards a Workable Definition of Good Practices in Disaster Risk Management

Abstract

The dissemination of knowledge on good practices has become popular among international organisations engaged in disaster risk management (DRM) and has gained the interest of DRM scholars. However, the term ‘good practices’ lacks a clear definition applicable to the DRM context. We argue that such a definition is an important first step towards a shared understanding of good practices among practitioners. In addition, a shared definition contributes to improvements in the evaluation of a good practice and its subsequent application. In this paper, we propose a workable definition of good practices by applying the ‘min-max strategy of concept formation’. We analyse a representative sample of DRM publications on good practices, as well as good practice definitions from various academic disciplines, to establish the minimal and maximal boundaries of the good practice concept as applied in DRM. We argue that a workable definition of good practices should be situated within these boundaries and that the following elements should be included: i) practices take a holistic approach to one or more DRM-cycle phases; ii) practices are effective, efficient, equitable and inclusive in terms of reaching a certain outcome; iii) the evaluation process of such practices should be transparent and based on sufficient and robust evidence and clear evaluation criteria; iv) when the dissemination advocates replication of the practices, contextual factors should be accounted for.

Keywords: good practice, best practice, Disaster Risk Management, min-max strategy of concept formation