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are incomplete and out of date,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