Bauer Willi, Titz Alexandra, Manda Mtafu C
Institute of Geography, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany.
Department of the Built Environment, Mzuzu University, Mzuzu, Malawi.
Jamba. 2024 Aug 15;16(1):1668. doi: 10.4102/jamba.v16i1.1668. eCollection 2024.
Cities in Malawi have long been outside the focus of disaster risk reduction. As a result, urban risks remain poorly understood, and urban governments and disaster risk reduction (DRR) practitioners working in cities struggle to adequately support vulnerable urban populations. This is evidenced by recent disasters such as Cyclone Freddy, which devastated the city of Blantyre in 2023, and increasingly common small-scale events in urban areas. This article analyses the Malawian city as a distinct riskscape, shaped by national-level policies of neglect that create an institutional void that DRR practitioners working at the city level struggle to fill. This process is complicated by a multitude of challenges at different levels of governance, especially leaving small-scale events prevalent in urban areas largely unaddressed. This process of risk accumulation is increasingly affecting urban residents. Methodologically, we demonstrate this through a comprehensive policy analysis and by drawing on expert and civil society interviews and questionnaires conducted in Lilongwe City.
By outlining the interlocking challenges at multiple levels and grounding them in empirical data, we highlight the specificities of urban DRR efforts in Malawi and provide opportunities to improve them.
长期以来，马拉维的城市一直处于减少灾害风险工作的关注范围之外。因此，城市风险仍未得到充分了解，城市政府以及在城市中开展工作的减少灾害风险（DRR）从业者难以充分支持城市中的弱势群体。2023年袭击布兰太尔市的“弗雷迪”气旋等近期灾害以及城市地区日益常见的小规模事件都证明了这一点。本文将马拉维城市分析为一个独特的风险环境，它受到国家层面忽视政策的影响，这些政策造成了制度空白，城市层面的DRR从业者难以填补这一空白。不同治理层面的众多挑战使这一过程变得复杂，尤其是城市地区普遍存在的小规模事件基本上未得到解决。这种风险积累过程正日益影响着城市居民。在方法论上，我们通过全面的政策分析以及利用在利隆圭市进行的专家和民间社会访谈及问卷调查来证明这一点。
通过概述多个层面相互关联的挑战并以实证数据为依据，我们突出了马拉维城市DRR工作的特殊性，并提供了改进这些工作的机会。
