National and Local Contingency Planning: a Comparative Analysis of Plans in Africa and Latin America

The past twenty years have provided evidence that preventive preparation of exposed communities can reduce the impact of natural disasters, hence the creation of contingency plans. Today these plans are adopted at various scales, precisely national, regional, municipal and, at times, even village-centred. But the consistency of contingency plans and their interconnection with the various scales is rarely achieved, especially in Least Developed Countries. The contingency device should not only be organised at various territorial levels, but it should also enable the actors to take coordinated action in case of a disaster. This crucial point is still scarcely discussed in the literature. The scope of this chapter is to present the differences between national and local contingency planning, the relationship between the two scales and the weak points that can still be found in the procedure. Eight contingency plans are compared, namely 5 national (Guinea, Haiti, Madagascar, Mozambique, Senegal) and 3 local (Ecuador, Haiti, Peru). The analysis diagram proposed by Choularton (2007) has been used as a reference for the presentation of the various planning scales, phases, scenarios and considerations on climate change.