Early Participatory Intervention for Catastrophe to reduce island vulnerability (EPIC)

Early Participatory Intervention for Catastrophe to reduce island vulnerability (EPIC)

Published Jan 2005

Authors

K. Haynes, I. Kelman, T. Mitchell

Publisher

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Combining early intervention with participatory approaches for disaster reduction

Disasters in isolated communities, such as islands, can have devastating impact. Their small size and remoteness create a situation where a relatively small hazard event can threaten an entire nation or culture, as seen from the impact of volcanic eruptions and hurricanes in Montserrat and Tristan da Cunha.

This proposal outlines a design to tackle this problem, which hypothesises that the combination of “early intervention” with a “participatory approach” would best reduce island vulnerability to both catastrophic and chronic disasters. The combination, termed EPIC (Early Participatory Intervention for Catastrophe) should occur long before a hazard threatens, but would also be essential when a crisis manifests and in the long-term aftermaths of extreme events.

Needs from EPIC:

  • A method for implementing EPIC, especially more details about operationalising the method.
  • Field guidelines for using EPIC, including a description of the advantages and disadvantages, but focused on specific implementation guidance.
  • A set of operational tools, i.e. a toolkit, to be used for EPIC (e.g. assessment, monitoring, participation, and evaluation techniques).
  • Possibly an operational framework or operational manual for EPIC, but that might not be needed.

Operational issues outlined by proposal:

  1. Resources, particularly time and patience, are needed to implement EPIC. Such resources might be scarce. A possible way to overcome this challenge is to use EPIC as a sustainability and development tool, which further reinforces the essential need to place disaster management in those contexts.
  2. EPIC must meld physical and social sciences. Appropriate selection and training of operational field workers could help to overcome such barriers, but the power of mono-disciplinarism should not be underestimated.
  3. A challenge exists in developing and maintaining a Deployable EPIC Team (DEPICT) which could properly depict the situation. 
  4.  EPIC entails both top-down and bottom-up activities working simultaneously—a difficult reconciliation. 
  5. Care must be taken to make EPIC a continual exchange rather than specific individuals or sectors dominating the process or unilaterally directing others with the expectation of obedience.

The summary of issues to overcome to make EPIC work is:

  • Collaboration amongst diverse fields through DEPICT.
  • Ensuring that DEPICT identifies community perspectives and integrates them into the vulnerability reduction strategies.
  • Encouraging the local population to accept outside information alongside their traditional knowledge.
  • Evaluating progress and actions while maintaining the positive EPIC results after DEPICT’s departure.

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