The role of non-governmental organizations in disaster management/ governance: The case of Balıkesir province

The roles of NGOs in disaster management are valuable in that, in addition to determining the framework for democracy, they will also provide some indicators as to whether disaster governance is efficient or not. In this research, it is important to determine the perspectives of disaster-themed NGOs and public institutions in Balıkesir regarding the place and role of NGOs in disaster management. The population of the research is first aid, emergency and search and rescue associations in Balıkesir, as well as disaster units/ commissions/ centers affiliated with public institutions and organizations. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews were held with representatives of 19 NGOs and 9 public institutions identified through purposeful sampling. The interviews were analyzed using the MAXQDA 2020 program by creating separate sub-codes, codes, sub-themes and themes for NGOs and public institutions. According to the research findings, when the social dimension of disaster management is evaluated, NGO representatives mostly stated the positive aspects of NGOs. In this sense, NGOs' instilling disaster awareness in society and healing the social wounds caused by disasters have been highlighted. On the contrary, in public institutions, the social-based negative effects of NGOs have been revealed more. The most frequently mentioned negativity is that NGOs think about themselves rather than society and try to advertise under the guise of contributing to disaster management. The majority of NGO representatives are of the opinion that the position of NGOs is indispensable in Balıkesir disaster management. In public institutions, it is widely believed that the absence of NGOs will not disrupt the functioning of disaster management. Both NGO and public institution representatives agree that children have a special place in disaster education. For this reason, positive relationships emerge between NGOs and public institutions that focus on children in disaster education. It is seen that most of the NGOs in the surrounding and coastal districts of Balıkesir are not satisfied with their role in disaster management, while the NGOs in the central districts are satisfied. When evaluated from a final perspective, it is understood that the communication of NGOs with the local people is extremely weak and this situation reveals the distrust towards NGOs among the public. For this reason, it can be said that the bridging social capital qualities, community representation and civil society dimension of the NGOs in the sample have deficiencies. In addition, internal and external obstacles of NGOs reveal that disaster governance in Balıkesir is not healthy.