Build Back Better: Challenges of Asian Disaster Recovery

International society led by the United Nations has been working to improve and standardize every country's post-disaster recovery policy. In particular, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction adopted at the UN World Conference at Sendai, Japan, in 2015 declared the slogan "Build Back Better (BBB)." In this book, the BBB is considered an essential common criterion for evaluating recovery status, but BBB variations in each individual country's context are pursued. In contrast to a governmental approach to recovery evaluation focusing mainly on physical structures and macro indicators, this volume focuses more on the affected societies, communities, economies, and especially victims' livelihoods. The authors are academics from diverse fields, including governance, law, economics, and engineering, so that the book is truly interdisciplinary.

This collection results from an international collaboration by scholars from "disaster-affected universities" in global-scale mega-disasters occurring in the Asian region in recent decades. The universities include Kobe University in Japan; Iwate University in Japan; Syiah Kuala University in Aceh, Indonesia; Sichuan University in China; and the University of the Philippines.

Toshihisa Toyoda

MA (Kobe University), Ph.D. in economics (Carnegie Mellon University).Professor Emeritus, Kobe University, Japan. He has published numerous papers on economic theory, econometrics, development economics, and policy issues of post-disaster recovery and revitalization in such international journals as Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy, Review of Economics and Statistics, Empirical Economics, International Economic Review, Journal of Econometrics, Asian Economic Journal, as well as others. He served as editor of Economic Studies Quarterly (the current Japanese Economic Review) between 1981 and 1985, and associate editor of several other journals. His edited books include Economic and Policy Lessons from Japan to Developing Countries (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) and Asian Law in Disasters: Toward a Human-Centered Recovery (Routledge, 2016). He served as president of the Japan Society for International Development between 2005 and 2008 and was a member of the Economic Recovery Committee after the 1995 Hanshin–Awaji Earthquake.

 

Jianping Wang

LL.M. (Jilin University), Ph.D. in economics (Sichuan University).

Professor, School of Law, Sichuan University, China. Also, professor of disaster law at the Institute for Disaster Management and Reconstruction of Sichuan University–Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is the chief expert, Natural Disaster Emergency Management and Disaster Recovery Research Think Tank in Sichuan University and is a council member of civil law in the China Law Society. He has published a study of structural control of risk of listed companies and studies on codification of civil law, the traps and risks in contract law in practice, and legal regulation of securities market risk.

 

Yuka Kaneko

LL.M. (Georgetown University, LL.D. (Kyushu University).

Professor and deputy executive director, Center for Social Systems Innovation, Kobe University, Japan. She is also a professor at the Research Center for Urban Safety and Security. Kobe University. She has published numerous papers on Asian law, law and development, law and society, and disaster law. Her edited books include Asian Law in Disasters: Toward a Human-Centered Recovery (Routledge, 2016) and Civil Law Reforms in Post-Colonial Asia: Beyond Western Capitalism (Springer, 2019). She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Japan Society of Asian Law.