Disaster Risk Management: The Exercise of Power, Legitimacy and Urgency in Stakeholder Role in Ghana

Aim: Disasters continue to wreck both developed and developing countries, causing high mortality and suffering and damage to local economies and also impede development. Ghana is exposed to natural hazards, and the country’s susceptibility to these disasters has increased in both frequency and complexity over the years. This requires an understanding of disaster planning and resource allocation, legitimised in stakeholders who exercise power and urgency to manage and mitigate external uncertainties and internal complexities. The study aimed to examine the exercise of power, legitimacy, and urgency of stakeholders in disaster risk management in the Accra Metropolitan Area.

Study Design: Qualitative case study design involving respondents purposively selected from Accra Metropolitan Area and local communities was employed. We used in-depth interviews and desk reviews of policy documents to assess stakeholder role in disaster risk management. We analysed the data using the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis technique based on three principles of the stakeholder theory; power, legitimacy, and urgency, to advance our discussions on stakeholder role in disaster risk management.

Results: The findings show that central government exercises high effective power, which serves as a strong basis for policy decisions but low precision and low urgency in responding to disaster risk management. At the local government level, the exercise of power and urgency to act appear ineffective despite a strong policy framework to guide disaster management. In addition, the exercise of power and legitimacy role appears low in the local communities. Conversely, urgency in addressing disaster risk management appears to be high among community members.

Conclusion: This study contributes to the existing literature by suggesting structural and administrative reforms to stakeholder role in the management of disasters; central government remains a dominant stakeholder; local government agencies restructured to have a definitive role and the communities maintain their demanding role to hold local government agencies accountable. These reforms will establish a sharp, clear roadmap for the future and set into motion scenario planning for unanticipated disasters.