Incentive Methods for Cooperation of Local Communities in Disaster Risk Reduction Programs and Increasing Resilience

 With regard to earthquakes and their sudden occurrence, special programs should be designed and implemented for people in order to encounter a probable disaster as well as to show appropriate and on-time reactions against it. In this paper, the main objective is to reduce the casualties and damages of earthquakes with the cooperation of people and identify the various methods for encouraging the local communities to cooperate in risk reduction programs and increasing resilience.

 The study is mixed-method research. The information is gathered through questionnaires, interviews, and checklists from the 22 sections of Tehran. 25 questions have been prepared and asked from 240 available participants through the internet (136 women and 104 men). For the qualitative section, 22 in-depth interviews were undertaken with experts in the field of disaster management employing content analysis. For the quantitative analysis, descriptive statistics were used through Spss software version 22.

 The obtained findings reveal the necessity of initiating and improving issues such as paying attention to the effective role of community cooperation in disaster management stages, organizing community-based programs in neighborhoods, initiating "bottom-up" communication channels, reinforcing the incentive mechanisms, strengthening the NGO's activities and mobilization of neighborhood services, as well as using new technology in communication, mobile applications, and media in order to stimulate the incentives of various groups of people for prioritizing issues related to earthquake risk reduction.

 The results show the importance of identifying various methods of encouraging local people in risk reduction programs and increasing safety, formation of community-based disaster management centers and active civil organizations at the national to local levels with the cooperation of public groups, addressing new ways for preparedness and awareness by performing continuous educational and awareness programs in places such as schools and cultural centers and in general, involving local communities to cooperate in risk reduction projects and increasing their resilience and safety.