community and administration with the help of professional and non-professional
organisations like NGOs, NPOs and CBOs. Since this scheme generates its own
resources within itself, the process is found to be sustainable. The association is also
found to be effective in collective decision-making, and to represent the voice of the
community. During the disaster events, this scheme is found to be useful, as
exemplified by experience from other areas with different disasters in Japan, including
flood and typhoon (Atsumi and Suzuki, 2003; Sugiman et al., 2003).
In the process of creating the Kobe Action Plan, a very important problem is
left unsolved, which is ‘who’ and ‘how’ to implement the action plan. This is related
not only to ‘leadership’ and ‘responsibility’ but also to ‘support systems’. In addition,
in the changing world, the relevance of the action plan will be changed, and needs to be
updated. It is when a whole chain of systems with clear initiatives and updated
functions are in place, that the challenge of achieving a sustainable civil society will
progress. To realise a safer society, it is essential that more people share fundamental
ideas in common.
Naidoo and Tandon (1999) in their book on civil society remind us that
current society evolved from civil society. Long ago, in most parts of the world, power
was with the people, and governance was with the community. It was a time when
social organisations depended on a very deep sense of community, and responsibilities
were shared with community members. As time has passed, the scenario has changed,
the state came to existence, the government was formed and argument over the role of
civil society has emerged. Clearly, it is not possible to turn back the clock, but it is
possible to remind ourselves about its origin, and perceive the values of humanity and
sustainable civil society.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful for the support of the UN Centre for Regional Development
(UNCRD) throughout this study. Discussions with colleagues in UNCRD (Y.
Nakagawa and Y. Tsunehiro) and NGOs Kobe (M. Murai) were valuable. The authors
also thank S. Sato of the Tsukimiyama residents’ association of Nishi Suma for sharing
useful data and information.