- Sustainable Hazards Mitigation in Kigali city (Rwanda)    922 kb by    Gakuba, Alexis & Tsinda, Aime | agakuba@hotmail.com    Short Outline The purpose of the paper is to apply a framework related to sustainable hazard mitigation to the context of Kigali city by analyzing citizen participation. Abstract Human beings have traditionally tried to cope with disasters in three ways: by issuing warnings and evacuation orders before a hazard occurs; by relying on emergency relief and insurance protection after a disaster occurs; and by physical/structural hazard reduction measures such as levees to reduce the likelihood of a future disaster (Burby, 1998). None of these approaches have proven to be adequate in reducing losses from disasters to acceptable levels. Furthermore, each of these general approaches is very expensive. This has led to a change in thinking, conceptualized in a sustainable hazard mitigation approach. Even though sustainable hazards mitigation is recognized as a promising approach to reducing the human and economic costs of natural hazards, there has been a lack of research on the extent to which citizen participation has to be included in hazard mitigation planning as a critical element of implementing this approach especially in developing countries. We intend to contribute meaningfully to this gap in knowledge by presenting a paper exploring the role of citizen participation in a hazard mitigation planning in case study of Kigali city (Rwanda). Recognizing that citizen participation is an integral element of hazards mitigation planning, the paper provides a review of the existing literature that is relevant to the subject and applies this framework to the case of Kigali city during our fieldwork conducted in January, February and March 2009. Keywords Sustainable hazards mitigation, Kigali Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2010: Sustainable City - Developing World   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper