Citation

Zhong K, Lu X. Disasters 2018; 42(3): 590-612.

Affiliation

Assistant Professor, Centre for Crisis Management Research, School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, China.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/disa.12262

PMID

29086990

Abstract

The Paired Assistance to Disaster Affected Areas (PADAA) programme is a mutual aid initiative with Chinese characteristics, which speeded up the process of restoring and reconstructing regions affected by the Wenchuan earthquake on 12 May 2008. The PADAA is an efficient instrument for catastrophe recovery, yet it remains a mysterious mechanism to many members of disaster management communities. This paper aims to lift the veil on it by assessing its origins and evolution. It draws on the multi-level moderated competition model to explain how the PADAA functions within the Chinese administrative system. The country's top-down political system allows the central authority to mandate provincial and local governments from more economically developed regions to assist devastated areas with post-disaster reconstruction. The practices of local accountability complement vertical control by giving leaders from donor regions strong incentives to accomplish assigned reconstruction tasks, resulting in intense competition between them.

© 2017 The Author(s). Disasters © Overseas Development Institute, 2017.

Language: en

Keywords

China; Wenchuan earthquake; catastrophe recovery; multi-level moderated competition; paired assistance; vertical control