National Policy Guidelines on Vulnerable Groups in Disasters.

The main objective of the Guidelines is to provide direction and guidance to disaster management authorities and other related stakeholders on inclusion of the needs of vulnerable groups at all levels. The overall principle to keep in mind in this regard, is that disasters do not happen in a vacuum and that these vulnerable groups are not living in isolation, rather combined they constitute more than half of the population. The main purpose for laying down these Guidelines under the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) is: to meet the needs of vulnerable segments of the population in a more targeted manner; to ensure that all interventions are designed with needs of specific groups in mind; to safeguard equitable access, benefits and opportunities in all relief/response designs; to ascertain and encourage balanced and active participation of vulnerable groups in decision making processes that affect them.
The National Policy Guidelines have been presented in two categories: Overarching Policy Guidelines and Specific Policy Guidelines. The Overarching Guidelines provide an overall direction for inclusion of needs and concerns of all vulnerable groups in all phases of disasters. The Specific Guidelines refer to only one group of vulnerable persons. They are sector-wise recommendations, which require specific targeted interventions to ensure integration of the needs of women, children, older persons and persons with disabilities. All the DMAs and relevant line departments have to ensure the implementation of both the standard and the specific guidelines for more comprehensive and inclusive disaster risk reduction and disaster risk management.
The challenges for the vulnerable groups in disasters have to be appropriately assessed and reflected into the national policies and frameworks and linked to the overall development agenda particularly to social protection and poverty reduction programmes.
Disaster preparedness is a crucial phase, which can reduce the impact and magnitude of future disasters. It entails activities and measures taken in advance to ensure effective response to the impact of hazards, including the issuance of timely and effective early warnings and the temporary evacuation of people and property from threatened locations. Policy Planning has to be evidence based and informed by authentic qualitative as well as quantitative data. Awareness raising aims at capacitating and involving communities. Disasters can be substantially reduced if people are well informed and motivated towards a culture of disaster prevention and resilience, which in turn requires the collection, compilation and dissemination of relevant knowledge and information on hazards, vulnerabilities and capacities (2.1). Prevention, preparation, response and rehabilitation/reconstruction are all interconnected within the crisis management cycle. The actions within this crisis management cycle have to be well informed and initiated after undertaking a proper risk assessment.