The Role of the Church in Promoting Rights-Based Approaches to Disaster Managment

We exist in an era of unprecedented disasters, both in severity and frequency. With the increasing unpredictability of natural processes and their impacts on vulnerable populations in many developing countries, the consequences of disaster put many lives and livelihoods at stake. The church is one institution that, because of its proximity to vulnerable communities throughout the developing world, as well as its ubiquity within many contexts, is able to respond quickly and compassionately to those affected by disaster. Indeed, for decades the church has been helping communities mitigate, prepare for, and recover from disaster. However, despite the church’s efforts, there is still a growing disparity between the victims of disaster and those with the power to limit its destruction. There are many tools, methods and approaches within development that are effective in helping agencies and institutions engage with complex issues like poverty, vulnerability, inequality and institutional corruption. This study proposes that, if the church incorporates rights-based approaches within its work in disaster management, its work can be made more effective. Thus, the research question that this paper aims to address is: How can the church promote rights-based approaches to disaster management? If the church adopts a rights-based approach to disaster management, will its advocacy work become more effective, as it engages with the higher levels of society in order to ensure that the marginalised are getting their fair share of inputs before, during and after disaster occurs? In exploring the role of the church in incorporating rights-based approaches within the context of disaster management, this thesis analyses 3 case studies from Kenya, Niger, Malawi and the Kashmir region of India through the lens of rights-based approaches. As the moral core of the rights-based approach lies within a Christian contextualisation of human rights, it is upon the basis of a holistic gospel – what the Micah challenge calls ‘integral mission,’ – that the church incorporate rights-based approaches into the work of disaster management, a field it has much experience in. Over the past few decades, development methods and frameworks have shifted drastically, as livelihoods-based, needs-based and charity-based approaches to development (to name only a few) have all flourished and faded with time. Now the development paradigm has shifted once again and it is now unthinkable to respond to poverty, disaster and oppression without talking of ‘rights’. Where other approaches to poverty and development have come and gone with time, it is unlikely that the rightsbased approach will be put on the development shelf anytime soon. We now exist in an era of human rights, where the only holistic response to poverty and issues of inequality is a framework that integrates human rights into processes of engaging with stakeholders while both protecting and promoting those rights.