This report was first commissioned by UNDP in 2013 as in input paper to the Global Assessment Report on Disaster Reduction 2015 under the global call for papers. The call and the analysis presented here responds to an identified need for more comparative studies on how governance systems and development situations have shaped progres on disaster risk management (DRM). This paper reviews a select number of different governance systems in terms of their institutional structures (centralized and decentralized), distribution or power and decision making authority, capacities and resources, and role of stakeholders among other characteristics.