COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT INTERVENTIONS DURING NATURAL DISASTER RECOVERY: A SCOPING REVIEW

Abstract

Background: Community empowerment refers to the process of aiding communities to gain control over their lives through involvement, participation, and commitment. Community empowerment plays an important role in disaster management during post-disaster recovery,  Thus, the objective of this review is to discuss the community empowerment interventions during the recovery phase of natural disaster and to highlight the strengths and challenges encountered in each intervention.

Materials and Methods: Multiple online databases (PubMed, Medline, Scopus, Cochrane, Google, and Google Scholar) were searched to identify relevant literature using the respective keywords; “Community” or “non-governmental organisation” or “public” AND “empowerment” or “participation” or “engagement” or “involvement” AND “disaster” or “disaster recovery” or “typhoon” or “earthquake” or “flood” or “hurricane” or “tsunami” or “tornado” or “volcanic eruption” or “cyclone” AND/OR recovery. All searches were limited to studies written in the English language and published between 2000 and 2020.

Result: A total of 14 articles on community empowerment interventions during recovery phase of natural disaster were reviewed and classified on the basis of four themes, including benefit sharing, decision making, implementation and evaluation.

Conclusion: Community participation is the core of community empowerment which is required for successful results in the post-disaster recovery phase. This review revealed that most of the articles exhibit elements of involvement of the community in decision making, sharing of benefit and implementation. Nevertheless, there is insufficient information on community participation in evaluation. Therefore, future studies may focus on this knowledge gap by considering the community participation in evaluation.

Keywords: community, empowerment, participation, recovery, natural disaster