Disaster Risk Management Approaches: Strategic Interventions to Revive a Devastated Health System in a Post-conflict or Disaster Setting

Abstract

When struggling health systems in low- and middle-income countries, especially in African settings, further encounter armed conflicts or disasters, the overwhelmed health systems are brought to ruins. Disaster risk management (DRM) has different approaches to addressing this issue. DRM approaches in reviving a ‘destroyed’ health system go beyond disease treatment and control as the wellbeing of the population becomes paramount. Following strategic methodologies in the various DRM approaches, six priority areas must be tackled to effectively kickstart the process of recovery in bringing back to normalcy the affected health system, and they are: infant and child mortality, poverty, communicable diseases, homelessness, food insecurity and the short- and long-term rehabilitation of the health system. Collaborations with the Global North are essential for effectively implementing DRM approaches in African settings. However, these collaborations have their challenges; the commonest being the rigid globalisation models that lead to imbalance in the operations of interventions. Therefore, recommendations such as flexibility and compromises in implementation and the focus on context have been given to address these challenges.