The spotty record of the Hyogo Framework for Action: Understanding the incentives of natural disaster politics and policy making

Given the increasing prevalence of large-scale natural disasters, why has progress implementing the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) been so varied and so spotty? This paper explores this question using an analytical framework developed in the economic and political science literature on collective action. As public goods vary across their levels of publicness and their aggregation technologies, so do many of the inherent incentives associated with countries fulfilling their pledges in the HFA. Thus, the framework helps explain why some of the HFA's priorities for action have been and will continue to be more easily attainable than others.

► Why has progress implementing the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) been so varied across countries and components?
► A public goods framework is utilized to explore the incentives inherent in disaster-related policy making.
► The areas of least progress in the HFA are those in which the inherent prospects for public goods provision are weakest.