The document discusses issues with Italy's approach to civil protection and disaster risk reduction. It notes that while local administration is meant to handle emergencies initially, in the case of L'Aquila the local administration was overridden and remains paralyzed. It also notes that guidelines and standards for emergency planning and management in Italy are incomplete, outdated, and lack harmonization. Further, disasters in Italy are seen as opportunities for corruption and theft of public funds rather than improvements in safety and security, and very few municipalities have adopted initiatives to increase community resilience to disasters.

1. David Alexander
CESPRO - University of Florence
Civil Protection Amid
Disasters and Scandals

2. Disclaimer: I started
work on environmental
and emergency-related
problems in Italy on the
19th of September 1974.
In 36 years I have failed
to change things for the
better. Before giving
up, I would like to ask
some awkward questions
and provide some even
more awkward answers.

3. Analysis
• registered
• archived
• forgotten
• ignored
Vulnerability
maintained.
-
• utilised
• adopted
• learned
Disaster
risk
reduced
+
Lessons
Past
events
The process of
disaster risk
reduction
(DRR)

4. What is orthodox reasoning
in Italian civil protection
?

5. Caveat lector: this publication
is based on self-assessment.

6. The orthodox approach: emergency
response begins at the local level.
The Italian approach: in L'Aquila
local administration was swept
aside and still remains paralysed.

7. The Italian approach: overwhelming
force, regardless of cost.
The orthodox approach: response should be
proportional to the size of the emergency.

8. The Italian approach: there isn't one.
The orthodox approach: emergencies
need an incident command structure.

9. The Italian approach: either supply
it all from Rome or abandon the
local forces to their own devices.
The orthodox approach: local
self-sufficiency and autonomous
decision making must be encouraged.

10. The Italian approach: mind-boggling sums
of money have been spent on transitional
settlement* and so far very few funds
have been allotted to reconstruction.
average *€3,750 per sq. metre,
€280,000 per apartment (40 or 60 sq m)
The orthodox approach: transitional settle-
ment should not impede reconstruction.

11. The Italian approach: in L'Aquila
no thought whatsoever was given
to this problem and the result is a
high incidence of socio-psychological
pathologies among the survivors.
The orthodox approach: in
transitional settlement the
social fabric should be preserved.

12. The Italian approach: the guidelines
are incomplete and out of date,
and the training has been foisted
onto the regional governments without
providing any harmonising criteria.
The orthodox approach: guidelines,
standards and norms should be issued
to ensure integrated disaster
response and training.

13. The Italian approach: in less than a
decade 600 ordinances have authorised
the expenditure of more than €10 billion,
some of that on projects that had
nothing to do with emergencies and
were not really useful at all.
The orthodox approach: emergency
measures should be used when
normal measures cannot be.

14. The Italian approach: disasters open
a Pandora's box of bad practice.
The orthodox approach: disasters lead
to improvements in safety and security.

15. The Italian approach: three municipalities
out of 8,104 have taken this to heart.
The UN's Making Cities Resilient initiative
has only one Italian signatory - Venice.
The orthodox approach: disaster risk
reduction (DRR) is a comprehensive
process of creating resilience.

16. What if there were another Irpinia 1980?

17. Conclusions

18. • Italian civil protection is democratic
and well-organised at the local level.
• Much is known about hazards in
Italy - so it ought to be, as they
are the most dangerous in Europe.
• Despite the plethora of courses
(1000 in Lombardy region alone),
there is little effective training in
emergency planning and management
and no adequate standards exist.
Conclusions

19. • Disasters are excellent opportunities for
corruption and theft of public money,
largely because surveillance of, and
controls upon, expenditure are relaxed.
• The concept of personal responsibility is
not part of the civil protection culture.
• Italian civil protection responds to
a logic of political short-termism.
Conclusions

20. Earth-
quake
Political
response
National
Regional
Local
Permanent
reconstruction
Bad
(functional
problems)
Good
(functionality
maintained)
Elections
Public image
of politicians
Amelioration
Political impact
on reconstruction
Suff-
ering
Reco-
veryTransitional
housing and
settlement

21. 2009->: Neoliberalism or more
assistentialism? Vote garnering
versus economic stringency.
1908: Liberalism - the state is
not a big source of disaster relief
1980: Assistentialism - the state
is a major source of largesse.

23. d.alexander@alice.it
protezione-civile-italia.blogspot.com
emergency-planning.blogspot.com
www.slideshare.com/dealexander