One of the lessons: In cascading disasters, contingencies have to be managed (and planned for it) in many different sectors. "Knowledge is ideology", says Alexander. The perception gap is growing, the misuse of the internet and social media gets bigger and bigger, too. Welfare can play an important role here, which leads to two other lessons: We need to plan and prepare for intersectional events that occur concurrently and mutually affect one another, and: civil protection needs to be participatory and inclusive at all levels of organization.
“We need role models for that”, emphasizes Alexander. “We need participatory democracy. It is key to disaster risk reduction and it must be founded on human rights.” Inequality and inequity often result from poor human rights and may be diagnostic of poor rights. A changing world will include a changing foundation of rights.