ＢＢＢ(Build Back Better)as a guideline for the world’s natural disasters
Keiko Chino / Journalist
April 30, 2021
When I recently heard the news that the Japan Meteorological Agency would in future no longer use the expression “afterquakes” to describe earthquakes that still occur in the area around the epicenter of the massive earthquake off the coast of Tohoku region, which had caused the unprecedented Great East Japan Earthquake 10 years ago, I got nervous for a second.
In general, the word “afterquake” conveys a weaker image than “main quake”. Not using this word means that there can always be “main quakes” from now on. So we will have to be on our toes.
The Meteorological Agency is said to have ceased the use of “afterquakes” to prevent a decline in the awareness of the need for disaster prevention, because the word “afterquake” gives the impression that big earthquakes will no longer occur. In that sense, my reaction may have been exactly what the agency had aimed for.
Earthquakes cannot be avoided as long as one lives in an earthquake-prone archipelago like Japan, where volcano belts run through the whole country with active fault lines traversing all over the islands. We have no choice but to work on disaster prevention and mitigation. Still, earthquakes do happen, so post-disaster reconstruction is no less important. Thus, in recent years, the concept of Build Back Better (BBB) has come to draw a lot of attention.
Reconstruction once was a synonym for rehabilitation and “put it back to the original state, and we’re done” was the main idea. At the time of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995, Masaharu Gotoda, the Special Advisor of the Committee for Reconstruction of the Hanshin-Awaji Area stated that “Getting richer after a fire won’t be tolerated”. This stoic admonition, coming from a senior politician and former top bureaucrat, was termed as the “Gotoda Doctrine” and was accepted as the norm governing the policy of the central government offices towards the affected areas. However, rehabilitation was not what Hyogo, one of the affected prefectures, wanted. What Hyogo had in mind was proactive renaissance as in the proverb “to turn misfortune into good fortune” and creative recovery to build something better than before the disaster. (The above is based on “Comprehensive Verification ‘Recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake’”, published last February as a reappraisal of the disaster and reconstruction 10 years after the event).
Today no one thinks that rehabilitation by itself is sufficient. It can be said that post-disaster efforts have made steady progress from rehabilitation to proactive reconstruction, then to creative reconstruction, and furthermore to BBB, which is a more concrete expression and easier to understand.
Although BBB may not yet be a familiar expression to the general public, it is in fact a concept that originated from Japan. At the third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction held in Sendai in 2015, Japan raised the importance of BBB and it was taken into “the Sendai Framework of Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030” which was adopted at the conference.
It was drawn from the reconstruction experience from the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, the earthquake in the Indian Ocean off Sumatra which caused the Indian Ocean Tsunami, and the Great East Japan Earthquake. Taking advantage of disasters to establish a stronger society against disasters before a disaster, that is to say, aiming to construct a more disaster-resilient society and spreading this all over the world: these are BBB’s characteristics.
BBB is also applied to reconstruction assistance. Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which provided official assistance for reconstruction after Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda in Tagalog) hit Leyte Island in Central Philippines in November 2013, and the top government officials of the Philippines including the Vice President agreed to reflect BBB in the principles of the reconstruction plan. Emphasis was also placed on a reconstruction plan befitting the circumstances of the country.
Come to think of it, the need for BBB is not limited to earthquakes. Today, due to climate change, natural disasters are becoming more frequent and more intense. The number of victims from natural disasters around the globe is estimated to be 200 million annually. Since the number of patients of Covid-19 is 150 million (as of April 30), the number of disaster victims is far greater. And disasters occur every year. It is hoped that Japan will further expand its philosophy through actions so that BBB will become established as a global natural disaster guideline.
Chino Keiko is a freelance journalist and a Guest Columnist of the Sankei Shimbun
In general, the word “afterquake” conveys a weaker image than “main quake”. Not using this word means that there can always be “main quakes” from now on. So we will have to be on our toes.
The Meteorological Agency is said to have ceased the use of “afterquakes” to prevent a decline in the awareness of the need for disaster prevention, because the word “afterquake” gives the impression that big earthquakes will no longer occur. In that sense, my reaction may have been exactly what the agency had aimed for.
Earthquakes cannot be avoided as long as one lives in an earthquake-prone archipelago like Japan, where volcano belts run through the whole country with active fault lines traversing all over the islands. We have no choice but to work on disaster prevention and mitigation. Still, earthquakes do happen, so post-disaster reconstruction is no less important. Thus, in recent years, the concept of Build Back Better (BBB) has come to draw a lot of attention.
Reconstruction once was a synonym for rehabilitation and “put it back to the original state, and we’re done” was the main idea. At the time of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995, Masaharu Gotoda, the Special Advisor of the Committee for Reconstruction of the Hanshin-Awaji Area stated that “Getting richer after a fire won’t be tolerated”. This stoic admonition, coming from a senior politician and former top bureaucrat, was termed as the “Gotoda Doctrine” and was accepted as the norm governing the policy of the central government offices towards the affected areas. However, rehabilitation was not what Hyogo, one of the affected prefectures, wanted. What Hyogo had in mind was proactive renaissance as in the proverb “to turn misfortune into good fortune” and creative recovery to build something better than before the disaster. (The above is based on “Comprehensive Verification ‘Recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake’”, published last February as a reappraisal of the disaster and reconstruction 10 years after the event).
Today no one thinks that rehabilitation by itself is sufficient. It can be said that post-disaster efforts have made steady progress from rehabilitation to proactive reconstruction, then to creative reconstruction, and furthermore to BBB, which is a more concrete expression and easier to understand.
Although BBB may not yet be a familiar expression to the general public, it is in fact a concept that originated from Japan. At the third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction held in Sendai in 2015, Japan raised the importance of BBB and it was taken into “the Sendai Framework of Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030” which was adopted at the conference.
It was drawn from the reconstruction experience from the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, the earthquake in the Indian Ocean off Sumatra which caused the Indian Ocean Tsunami, and the Great East Japan Earthquake. Taking advantage of disasters to establish a stronger society against disasters before a disaster, that is to say, aiming to construct a more disaster-resilient society and spreading this all over the world: these are BBB’s characteristics.
BBB is also applied to reconstruction assistance. Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which provided official assistance for reconstruction after Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda in Tagalog) hit Leyte Island in Central Philippines in November 2013, and the top government officials of the Philippines including the Vice President agreed to reflect BBB in the principles of the reconstruction plan. Emphasis was also placed on a reconstruction plan befitting the circumstances of the country.
Come to think of it, the need for BBB is not limited to earthquakes. Today, due to climate change, natural disasters are becoming more frequent and more intense. The number of victims from natural disasters around the globe is estimated to be 200 million annually. Since the number of patients of Covid-19 is 150 million (as of April 30), the number of disaster victims is far greater. And disasters occur every year. It is hoped that Japan will further expand its philosophy through actions so that BBB will become established as a global natural disaster guideline.
Chino Keiko is a freelance journalist and a Guest Columnist of the Sankei Shimbun
The English-Speaking Union of Japan
ＢＢＢ（より良い復興）を世界の自然災害の指針に
千野 境子 / ジャーナリスト
2021年 4月 30日
10年前に未曾有の東日本大震災をもたらした東北沖の巨大地震の震源周辺領域で起きる地震について、先ごろ気象庁が今後は「余震」という表現を使わないとのニュースを聞いた時、私は一瞬ドキッとした。
一般に「余震」は「本震」よりも弱いイメージがある。それを使わないということは、今後は何時でも「本震」が来るということ。これは用心せねばと思った。
気象庁が「余震」使用を止めるのは、「余震」というと大きな地震は起きないという印象を与えるので、防災意識の低下を防ぐためだそうだから、私の反応はもしかすると、気象庁の狙い通りだったのかもしれない。
火山帯が走り、至る所に活断層があり、地震列島のような日本に住んでいる以上、地震は避けられない。防災・減災に努めるしかない。それでも地震は起きるから、災後の復興が勝るとも劣らず重要になる。そこで近年、注目されてきたのが「より良い復興（Build Back Better ＝ＢＢＢ）」という考え方だ。
かつて復興は復旧と同義語で、元に戻せば終わりが主流だった。1995年の阪神・淡路大震災の際に、後藤田正晴・復興委員会特別顧問は「焼け太りは認められない」と発言。政官界の大御所の言葉だけに、発言は「後藤田ドクトリン」と称され、中央官庁の被災地への方針として規範性をおびることになった。しかし被災地・兵庫県が望んだのは復旧ではなかった。「禍転じて福となす」積極的な復興であり、旧より良いものをつくる創造的復興だったという（以上は「総合検証『東日本大震災からの復興』」による）。
今ではもう誰も復旧すればそれで十分とは考えない。復旧から積極的復興そして創造的復興、さらに今はもっと具体的で分かりやすい表現であるＢＢＢへ、災後の取り組みは確実に前進してきたと言えよう。
ＢＢＢは一般的にはまだあまり馴染みのない表現だが、実は日本発の概念だ。2015年に仙台市で開かれた第3回国連防災会議で日本がその重要性を提起し、会議で採択された「仙台防災枠組2015-2030」に取り入れられた。
阪神・淡路大震災やインド洋大津波を引き起こしたスマトラ島沖地震、さらには東日本大震災などの復興経験から導き出されたものだ。災害を奇貨として、より災害に強い社会を構築すること、つまり災害の前より、より強靭な社会の構築を目指し、これを世界に広めていこうというところにＢＢＢの特徴がある。
ＢＢＢは復興支援にも応用されている。2013年11月にフィリピン中部レイテ島を襲った台風ハイエン（比名ヨランダ）の復興で、支援に当たった国際協力機構（ＪＩＣＡ）と副大統領など比政府トップは合意し、政府の復興計画の基本にＢＢＢを反映させた。同時に、その国に見合った復興という観点も重視されたという。
考えて見れば、ＢＢＢの必要性は地震だけに限らない。今日、気候変動などの影響もあって自然災害は頻発し、激甚化の傾向を強めている。世界の自然災害の被災者は年間2億人と言われる。新型コロナウイルス感染症の患者は1億5000万人（4月30日現在）だから、被災者の多さは群を抜いている。しかも毎年のことだ。ＢＢＢが世界の自然災害の指針として定着するよう、日本はその思想を、行動を通してさらに広げたいものである。
筆者はフリーランスジャーナリスト、産経新聞客員論説委員
一般に「余震」は「本震」よりも弱いイメージがある。それを使わないということは、今後は何時でも「本震」が来るということ。これは用心せねばと思った。
気象庁が「余震」使用を止めるのは、「余震」というと大きな地震は起きないという印象を与えるので、防災意識の低下を防ぐためだそうだから、私の反応はもしかすると、気象庁の狙い通りだったのかもしれない。
火山帯が走り、至る所に活断層があり、地震列島のような日本に住んでいる以上、地震は避けられない。防災・減災に努めるしかない。それでも地震は起きるから、災後の復興が勝るとも劣らず重要になる。そこで近年、注目されてきたのが「より良い復興（Build Back Better ＝ＢＢＢ）」という考え方だ。
かつて復興は復旧と同義語で、元に戻せば終わりが主流だった。1995年の阪神・淡路大震災の際に、後藤田正晴・復興委員会特別顧問は「焼け太りは認められない」と発言。政官界の大御所の言葉だけに、発言は「後藤田ドクトリン」と称され、中央官庁の被災地への方針として規範性をおびることになった。しかし被災地・兵庫県が望んだのは復旧ではなかった。「禍転じて福となす」積極的な復興であり、旧より良いものをつくる創造的復興だったという（以上は「総合検証『東日本大震災からの復興』」による）。
今ではもう誰も復旧すればそれで十分とは考えない。復旧から積極的復興そして創造的復興、さらに今はもっと具体的で分かりやすい表現であるＢＢＢへ、災後の取り組みは確実に前進してきたと言えよう。
ＢＢＢは一般的にはまだあまり馴染みのない表現だが、実は日本発の概念だ。2015年に仙台市で開かれた第3回国連防災会議で日本がその重要性を提起し、会議で採択された「仙台防災枠組2015-2030」に取り入れられた。
阪神・淡路大震災やインド洋大津波を引き起こしたスマトラ島沖地震、さらには東日本大震災などの復興経験から導き出されたものだ。災害を奇貨として、より災害に強い社会を構築すること、つまり災害の前より、より強靭な社会の構築を目指し、これを世界に広めていこうというところにＢＢＢの特徴がある。
ＢＢＢは復興支援にも応用されている。2013年11月にフィリピン中部レイテ島を襲った台風ハイエン（比名ヨランダ）の復興で、支援に当たった国際協力機構（ＪＩＣＡ）と副大統領など比政府トップは合意し、政府の復興計画の基本にＢＢＢを反映させた。同時に、その国に見合った復興という観点も重視されたという。
考えて見れば、ＢＢＢの必要性は地震だけに限らない。今日、気候変動などの影響もあって自然災害は頻発し、激甚化の傾向を強めている。世界の自然災害の被災者は年間2億人と言われる。新型コロナウイルス感染症の患者は1億5000万人（4月30日現在）だから、被災者の多さは群を抜いている。しかも毎年のことだ。ＢＢＢが世界の自然災害の指針として定着するよう、日本はその思想を、行動を通してさらに広げたいものである。
筆者はフリーランスジャーナリスト、産経新聞客員論説委員
一般社団法人 日本英語交流連盟