Framework Report as Guidance for Case Studies

The main goal of the ENHANCE project is to develop and analyse new ways to enhance society's resilience to catastrophic natural hazard impacts. Key for achieving this goal is to analyse new multi-sector partnerships (MSPs) that aim at reduce or redistribute risk, and increase resilience. This document introduces a working definition of partnership, where MSPs are understood as: "...voluntary but enforceable commitments between partners from different sectors (public authorities, private services/enterprise and civil society), which can be temporary or long-lasting. They are founded on sharing the same goal in order to gain mutual benefit, reduce risk and increase resilience." (Rhodes, 1997) New forms of MSPs are needed, since it appears that existing partnerships are often not effective in managing risk from natural hazards. For example, the different responses to heat-waves and floods in Europe demonstrate that the roles of public, private, and civil society actors (including individuals) in preparing for and responding to catastrophic impacts are often neither clear nor effective. Moreover, actors must often base their risk management strategies on scarce, limited, or inaccurate risk information. Together, these factors can lead to the development of ineffective (prevention and mitigation) and unacceptable measures and unexpectedly large impacts of natural disasters (financial, ecological, health, and social). Moreover, in preparing for and responding to natural hazard impacts, there is also often a lack of clarity on financial responsibilities about who pays what, how much, and when. Hence, knowing the challenge of managing risks resulting from natural hazards has increased, it becomes clear that these risks cannot be handled by either private sector of the government as single actors, and strategies to increase resilience should therefore incorporate all sectors of society (including closer cooperation between sectors).