How much the Iranian government spent on disasters in the last 100 years? A critical policy analysis

BACKGROUND: During the past 20 years, Iran has been experiencing a significant increase in the occurrence of disasters mainly due to the emergence of anthropogenic climate change. This paper aims at analyzing the trend of national budget allocation in Iran over the last 100 years to evaluate the focus of the Iranian state on the four phases of Preparedness, Mitigation, Response, and Recovery and propose modifications. METHODS: It is used a critical policy analysis with what’s the problem represented approach. In this approach is focused on problematization and policy gaps. The most important policy statement in any government is the budget. During the first screening, 1028 regulations and laws were found from 1910 to 2020. After full text screening, 494 regulations and laws related to budget allocation to disasters were analyzed. RESULTS: The Iranian government has spent around 29 billion USD on disasters during the last 100 years. Droughts, earthquake and flood have costs the government more than other disasters, accounting for more than 14, 6.9, and 6.1 billion USD, respectively, in the allocated budget. Most of the Iranian government expenditure during the last 100 years on various disasters such as drought, flood, earthquake, and COVID-19 has been spent on involuntary costs including Response and Recovery. Mitigation and Preparedness are the two critical disaster management phases with very small shares of national budgeting. CONCLUSIONS: From policy audit and policy gaps it is concluded that Iranian governments during last 100 years, problematized the issue of “disasters strike” and not “disasters’ risks”. In time of disasters, governments tried to solve the issues or impacts of disasters with budgeting to response and recovery. Nevertheless, disasters’ prevention or mitigation or preparedness was not a problem for Iranian governments from 1920 to 2020.