Transition of the World BOSAI Forum: Looking Back at the Past Three Forums

Abstract

The World BOSAI Forum (WBF) is a biennial conference on disaster risk reduction (DRR) that has been held in Sendai, Japan, since 2017. The WBF aims to implement the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 (SFDRR), which advocates for diverse participation of stakeholders in DRR. This study examines the efforts and outcomes of the WBF in fostering diverse participation, especially from civil society, in DRR. This study analyzes the transitions in attitude toward diverse participation, participant attributes, and externally dispatched issues over the past three WBFs. It adopts a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative data from various sources, such as official documents, in-depth interviews, and text mining. The study finds that the WBF has three main objectives: to disseminate the concept of BOSAI, promote the SFDRR, and encourage the diverse participation of stakeholders, especially civil society, in DRR. The results show that the WBF is gradually increasing its commitment to diverse participation and achieving positive results in encouraging non-expert citizen participation. It is suggested that a detailed analysis of the WBF would contribute to forming a platform with diverse participation, including the participation of non-expert citizens. Conversely, challenges remain in women’s participation, and content analysis is required to choose a platform that promotes diverse forms of participation.