Bringing the state back in to humanitarian crises response: Disaster governance and challenging collaborations in the 2015 Malawi flood response

Tanja D. Hendriks, F.K. Boersma

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Malawi is a disaster-prone country with a long history of flooding. Yet disaster response policies have been largely neglected and disaster risk reduction efforts are mostly donor-led. The 2015 floods showed that Malawi’s local and national state institutions struggled to respond adequately. To support the Malawi government, the United Nations implemented its cluster system to coordinate the collaborations between the state, humanitarian and nongovernmental organizations in the disaster response. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with relief intervention participants, we argue that a focus on the localization of aid without explicit attention to the affected state’s institutions is problematic in contexts characterized by limited state capacity and overall donor dependency.
Original languageEnglish
Article number101262
Pages (from-to)1-7
Number of pages7
JournalInternational Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction
Volume40
Early online date8 Aug 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2019

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