Six years weaving networks for a fairer risk management with a collective voice

These six years have confirmed to us that bringing together diverse voices, unsettling established logics, and building other ways of thinking about and practicing risk management is the path we want to follow. This anniversary is a new starting point to discuss what futures we want to inhabit.

Today we celebrate six years of Colectiva RIGEN. These have been years of collective constructions, of learning together, but also of understanding that risk management requires questioning the order that produces disasters. That learning led us to place at the center of our debates and reflections issues that have historically been treated as external or secondary in disaster risk management, but that are in fact decisive for its transformation.

On this anniversary we want to pause on some of them. Throughout this journey, we have observed how the way we conceive and organize care, its link to inclusion, and its role in shaping societies is key to sustaining the social order. Speaking of inclusion in risk management is to recognize care as a structural axis that links communities and sustains life. In these years we have seen how these care networks intensify and reconfigure in critical situations, showing the capacities and bonds that can become solid foundations for response and recovery.

Another dimension we cannot overlook is the financial one. The capacity to anticipate and plan how the costs of extreme events will be covered largely defines the response and recovery. Incorporating approaches that integrate fiscal foresight, protection mechanisms, and social justice criteria allows risk to be understood as a shared responsibility and not only as a burden after the emergency. This opens debates about the role of States in a global scenario crossed by multiple crises and reminds us that speaking of DRM is also speaking of power, of resource distribution, and of who decides over them.

Looking ahead, we think that the following three lines of debate and research could guide us as a Colectiva for our next cycle.

• The first is democratic risk governance that incorporates diverse voices in the design of public policies and technical tools, ensuring that decision-making responds to multiple and diverse realities and knowledge.

• The second is effective financing, aware of its inclusive dimension within fiscal justice. Planning must recognize and budget for those historical debts with excluded populations to avoid improvisation and reduce the social gaps that amplify impacts.

• The third is for DRM to innovate by incorporating visions that broaden its scope and transform its priorities. Care policies as a central axis of public policy or the strengthening of community networks through new technologies are examples of new solutions that can open different paths in the face of risk.

We believe that this anniversary is celebrated by opening debates. We want the efforts of the coming years to be aimed at weaving new political pacts where the technical, the financial, and the loving commitment to those with whom we share territories advance hand in hand. That is our horizon.