In 2013, the Ecuadorian Red Cross (ERC) worked with national authorities to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the national legal and institutional framework for international disaster assistance, using the IDRL Guidelines as a benchmark. The resulting report provided recommendations, which served as the basis for a roadmap to strengthen the country’s legal system for managing international disaster assistance.
This work on IDRL was of great value during response to the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck coastal Ecuador on 16 April 2016. A prior awareness and understanding of IDRL issues meant that important legal facilities were provided during the emergency operation, based on key recommendations in the IDRL report. Ecuador's success in implementing IDRL was subsequently featured in the 2017 IFRC Disaster Law report, From Law to Action: Saving Lives through International Disaster Response Law.
In 2017, Ecuador was part of the IFRC Disaster Law study entitled Effective Law and Policy on Gender Equality and Protection from Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Disasters. The study aimed to fill a gap in knowledge on the effectiveness of national laws, policies and institutional frameworks in supporting gender equality in disaster risk management and in preventing and responding to sexual and gender-based violence in disasters. As part of the study, a case study on Ecuador was prepared.
During 2021, based on the IFRC Guide to Strengthening the Auxiliary Role through Law and Policy, Ecuador Red Cross' revised how the National Society Auxiliary Role is been recognize on sectoral laws, policies plans and agreements. It also reviewed legal facilities, enabling to conduct their operations more efficiently and effectively. The report’ findings and recommendations, as well as next steps are established at the advocacy strategy and roadmap developed, focusing on promoting a Red Cross Constitutive law and strengthened legislative advocacy capacities.
In 2022, IFRC Disaster Law strengthened Ecuador National Society legislative advocacy capacities though the facilitation of the Legislative Advocacy toolkit training to key personnel.
Ecuador’s landmark 2024 Organic Law for Integral Disaster Risk Management, established a fully decentralized national system encompassing anticipatory action, multi-hazard early warning, response, and recovery. Taking advantage of this advance, the Disaster Law team conducted a desk study in 2025, assessing this framework against international early warning and anticipatory action standards, consulting key national authorities open sources including the National Secretariat for Risk and Emergency Management (SNGRE), the National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology (INAMHI), and Geophysical Institute of the National Polytechnic School, among others. While the legal architecture is robust — formally recognizing the Ecuadorian Red Cross leading role in evacuation, search and rescue, and humanitarian assistance, and aligning with the UN's Early Warnings for All (EW4All) initiative, the study identified persistent implementation gaps, including insufficient and inequitably distributed budgets at the local level, limited integration of indigenous and vulnerable communities into early warning design, the absence of translations of key legislation into indigenous languages, and the need to benchmark the existing multi-hazard early warning system against specialized international standards. Priority recommendations included strengthening monitoring and evaluation mechanisms for the new law's implementation, deepening local government capacity in risk governance, and ensuring that community-level early warning systems are adequately resourced across all at-risk territories.
