The need to ‘mainstream’ disaster risk reduction into development is a call to address risks emanating from natural hazards. This, states Benson and Twigg in their guidance notes for use by development organizations, on tools for mainstreaming disaster risk reduction; is evidence of the challenging situation. This paper is an exploration of best practices that can be undertaken by industries to reduce risks. The paper also discusses some of the challenges encountered in implementing risk reduction strategies. The authors thus conducted a study in Eldoret Municipality in the Rift Valley region of Kenya. Purposive sampling was used to select the industries and simple random sampling to select the study units which included Managerial staff and operational workers as well as labor officers in the Ministry of labor (Public Health Officers), fire brigade officers, Kenya National Environment Management Authority (KNEMA) and the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) Regional officials. Interviews and questionnaires were used for data collection. Data was then analyzed using descriptive statistics. Hazard identification, risk assessment, control and monitoring while bottom-up communication and consultation model provided an important best practice for risk reduction. This study will help employers develop emergency response plans for risk reduction.
Keywords: Hazard, Information, Intervention strategies, Risk Assessment, Risk Management, Risk reduction
