Disaster as an Opportunity: Planning and Infrastructure Design for Resilience in Disaster Risk Management

Under the slogan “build back better” disasters are treated as an opportunity to build infrastructures that are less vulnerable to future calamities. Measures are taken to increase the level of economic output while managing risk to life and property. Recent disasters across Malawi provided an opportunity for better infrastructure planning, design and implementation. The paper highlights the post disaster recovery efforts in Malawi as an opportunity to construct better infrastructure. A desk research approach and content analysis were used to analyze secondary data based on studies from various countries. The paper reveals that better planning and design of infrastructure is important to ensure that post disaster reconstruction accomplishes more than restoration. It reveals that disaster is an opportunity to build back better capacities; expanding access to services; mobilizing resources for construction of resilient infrastructures; reducing poverty; strengthening.
livelihood security; and opening up spaces for better coordinated actions. Malawi is yet to take significant advantage of disasters as an opportunity to build back better infrastructures where it could have proved challenging in terms of cost. Local authorities seldom enforce measures that can amount to capitalizing on disasters as an opportunity to invest in underdeveloped zones at a lower cost hence improve the performance of local economies. Disasters must be considered as an opportunity because of the high attention and good will they generate and taking advantage of the situation to plan and design better infrastructure and mobilizing resources can result in resilient infrastructures, better local economies and
livelihoods. Stakeholders in the local economy must develop and adopt new visions which can be achieved through the implementation of new ideas which were difficult to implement before the disaster. The recovery process must create a platform, where stakeholders can take advantage of the learning opportunities that can promote building back better resilient infrastructures.

Key Words: Disaster, Infrastructure, Opportunity, Planning, Resilience, Build back better.