Bridging Policy and Practice: Evaluating Urban Design Frameworks for Disaster Risk Reduction in a Kenyan Municipality

Abstract

Rapid, largely unplanned urbanisation in sub-Saharan Africa is intensifying disaster exposure and revealing persistent gaps between urban policy and implementation. Although Kenya has established policy and legal instruments for disaster risk reduction, including the National Disaster Risk Management Policy, the Urban Areas and Cities Act, and county spatial plans, urban planning and disaster management often remain institutionally separate. This study examines how to integrate urban design frameworks with disaster mitigation to strengthen community resilience in Bungoma Municipality, Kenya. It evaluates the effectiveness of zoning regulations, spatial plans, and building codes; identifies institutional, financial, infrastructural, and socio-spatial barriers to implementation; and proposes governance reforms to bridge the policy-practice divide. Grounded in Resilience Theory and a pragmatist paradigm, the study used a mixed-methods design comprising household surveys (N = 358), key informant interviews (n = 24), focus group discussions (n = 3), and GIS-based spatial analysis. Findings show that existing urban design frameworks are structurally adequate but operationally weak: only 4.7% of respondents rated land-use regulations as very effective, while 39% considered institutional coordination ineffective. Five mutually reinforcing barriers—fragmented institutions, weak enforcement, infrastructure deficits, limited financing, and low community participation—continue to sustain vulnerability. Renters were 2.31 times more likely than homeowners to identify financial constraints as the main challenge (p < .001). The study extends Resilience Theory by demonstrating how tenure status, education, and spatial inequality constrain adaptive capacity, introducing “resilience apartheid” to describe uneven access to resilience infrastructure.