Helping regions impacted by natural disaster to recover and renew

Over the past year, the Regional Australia Institute has been dedicated to developing better approaches to helping communities struck by natural disasters get back on their feet and looking to the future. Looking at the typical barriers to the recovery process and how we can do better, this research is particularly important as Australia is already in the midst of bushfire season.

Today, we are releasing ‘Helping regions impacted by natural disaster to recover and renew’, a regional policy briefing building on the extensive research already undertaken by the Regional Australia Institute on disaster recovery in Australia. The brief draws on case studies undertaken in Emerald, Cardwell, Carisbrook and Marysville and presents a series of recommendations and focus areas for all tiers of recovery stakeholders, including Government, community and business.

In particular, ‘Helping regions impacted by natural disaster to recover and renew’ finds that:

• Helping businesses reopen as quickly as possible after a disaster is critical to minimising population displacement
• Economic recovery is essential to community recovery and should beprioritised from the initial phases of recovery efforts
• Recovery planning should consider how the disaster has shifted economic opportunities for a community,
• Poorly planned Government and private relief efforts can cause more harm than good

The paper concludes that if the full dynamics of the recovery process are not understood, recovery efforts will continue to yield poor medium and long term outcomes, with many communities continuing the struggle up to 25 years down the track. This not only affects the long-term autonomy of the community, but presents poor outcomes for the resource expenditure and efforts of government.

To download a full copy of ‘Helping regions impacted by natural disaster to recover and renew’, click here.

For more information on the RAI’s research on natural disaster recovery, click here.