Role of Community Groups in Disaster Management

The Australian Council of Social Service has released the report "Adapting the Community Sector for Climate Extremes " by Karl Mallon, Emily Hamilton, Manu Black, Betsi Beem and Julius Abs of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF):

Given its size, scope and the critical role the Australian community sector plays in building client and community resilience and in assisting communities to respond to and recover from the devastating impacts of extreme weather events and natural disasters, the research identifies serious gaps in both the policy frameworks and the research base required to ensure the sector’s resilience and adaptive capacity – gaps which appear to have already had serious consequences. To address these gaps, a series of recommendations has been prepared to enable the development and implementation of a comprehensive, sector-specific adaptation and preparedness program, which includes mechanisms to institutionalise knowledge and skills, streamlined tools appropriate to the needs and capacity of a diverse range of organisations and a benchmarking system to allow progress towards resilience and preparedness to be monitored. Future research priorities for adaptation in this sector have also been identified.