Strategic Action Planning: From diagnosis to transformative change in Karonga, Malawi and Freetown, Sierra Leone

The workshops were a follow up to the process of understanding risk accumulation over time in the two cities and to apply the practices and resources (as part of the “ReMapRisk” process) that had been mobilised to monitor, and study the risk profile, existing initiatives for DRR and capacities to act of community residents and various stakeholders. 

The preliminary findings from the ‘ReMapRisk’ data collection were shared and refined to create a number of strategic action plans in the light of the findings and debates. The participants were encouraged and led to draft plans that were practical and time bound, reflecting on a number of objectives and considerations such as:

• What are the priority risks to be tackled? Why?
• How are these issues linked to each other?
• How are these priority issues likely to change in the future?
• Who is most vulnerable to them and where?
• What actions / initiatives are already being taken to meet the strategic targets? What could be improved or changed?
• What new actions should be taken? Why?
• Is there the need for more information? What specifically?

Each action plan was drafted at the lowest level of devolved DRR structures that had been identified. In Karonga 4 strategic action plans were prepared by the four Neighbourhood Disaster Risk Management Committees (NRMCs), where as, in Freetown, a total of 15 strategic action plans are being prepared by the five Community-Based Disaster Risk Management Committees (CBDRMCs) found in each of the three districts of the city (Western, Central and Eastern). 

By March 2018, it is expected that each of the action plans created would have been refined and prioritised, with some small seed funding provided by the project for practical interventions and that will serve as a hands-on learning opportunity on community–based DRR.