Disaster 'soft' and 'hard' laws: building resilience for displaced people in the Middle East and North Africa (mena) region.

Evidence from the 2015 Global Assessment Report on DRR recognises that ‘most resources continue to be invested in strengthening capacities for disaster management, and there has been limited success in applying policies, norms, standards and regulations to manage and reduce risk across development sectors’ (UNISDR 2015). With a memorable and enduring history of conflicts, civil unrests, and refugee crisis, the impact of climate change and disaster forced displacement, undermine the cities adaptive capacities to deal with protracted displacement. Nowhere else is this most pronounced than in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Recognising the urgent need to shift from managing disasters to managing risks, we argue that the accountability of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) 2015-2030 as a non-binding ‘soft law’, has to build upon the human rights ‘hard laws’ for disaster displaced people to build resilience in the (MENA) Region.). With the aim to support this argument, the study adopts the ‘Sustainability Assessment’ method, by integrating the displaced people rights for property, access to land and security of tenure into the (SFDRR) Scorecard cities Resilience Assessment (Essential 04: Pursue Resilient Urban Development). The study outcomes suggest combining the use of qualitative and quantitative indicators to shift DRR from emergency response to sustainable development, and strengthen the ratification of displaced people ‘hard laws’ with the endorsement of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.