Launch of How to Make Cites More Resilient: Handbook for Local Government Leaders. A contribution to the global campaign 2010-2015: making cities resilient – my city is getting ready!

Citation

Molin Valdes, H. (2012), "Launch of How to Make Cites More Resilient: Handbook for Local Government Leaders. A contribution to the global campaign 2010-2015: making cities resilient – my city is getting ready!", International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, Vol. 3 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijdrbe.2012.43503baa.003

Launch of How to Make Cites More Resilient: Handbook for Local Government Leaders. A contribution to the global campaign 2010-2015: making cities resilient – my city is getting ready!

Article Type: News article From: International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, Volume 3, Issue 2

To raise commitment among local decision makers and city leaders, in 2010 UNISDR and its partner organisations launched the global campaign “Making cities resilient – my city is getting ready!”[1]. The objectives of the campaign are to increase understanding and encourage commitment by local and national governments to make disaster risk reduction and resilience and climate change a policy priority and to bring the global Hyogo Framework closer to local needs. The campaign spans an increasing global network of engaged cities, provinces and municipalities of different sizes, characteristics, risk profiles and locations, that can help and learn from each other, enhance knowledge, and transfer expertise and technical support to achieve the objective of building resilience. The “Ten essentials for making cities resilient” form the guiding principles for these commitments, helping to establish benchmarks for disaster resilience in cities.

This handbook is designed primarily for local government leaders and policy makers to support public policy, decision making and organization as they implement disaster risk reduction and resilience activities. It offers practical guidance to understand and take action on the “Ten essentials for making cities resilient”, as set out in the global campaign “Making cities resilient: my city is getting ready!” The handbook is built on a foundation of knowledge and expertise of campaign partners, participating cities and local governments. It responds to the call for better access to information, knowledge, capacities and tools to effectively deal with disaster risk and extreme climate events. It provides an overview of key strategies and actions needed to build resilience to disasters, as part of an overall strategy to achieve sustainable development, without going into great detail and is structured around the following key chapters:

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  Chapter 1. Why invest in disaster risk reduction?

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  Chapter 2. What are the ten essentials for making cities disaster resilient?

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  Chapter 3. How to implement the ten essentials for making cities resilient?

Each city and local government will determine how these actions apply to their own context and capacities. There is no one-size-fits-all solution.

The annexes to this handbook contain more detailed information, including links to electronic tools, resources and examples from partner cities. A web-based information platform, where cities and local governments can share their own tools, plans, regulations and practices, complements the handbook and will be available through the Campaign web site at: www.unisdr.org/campaign

Throughout the handbook we refer to “cities” and “local governments”. The approach to resilience, as described, also applies to sub-national administrations of different sizes and levels, including at regional, provincial, metropolitan, city, municipal, township, and village level.

We have translations in French and Spanish almost ready, and Arabic, Russian and Chinese is underway. The city of Mashad has organized translations into Farsi. Shortly we will have an improved possibility on the new campaign web site to add more tools and case studies, and our aim is to make the web site as interactive as possible to share experience, city to city learning modalities and results.

The official launch will be held at the Bonn Resilient Cities Congress, with ICLEI and partners 13-15 May 2012. Please feel free to organize local or other launches – we seek your help to replicate, reproduce and adapt to local languages orb conditions, for workshops, programs and advocacy.

EU creates academic network for disaster resilience

The European Commission’s education, audiovisual and culture executive agency is to boost disaster preparedness in European cities by turning higher education institutes into reliable partners to reduce society’s vulnerability to hazards.

The newly-funded €790,000 project, called the academic network for disaster resilience to optimise educational development (ANDROID), will run for three years and is led by Professor Dilanthi Amaratunga and Dr Richard Haigh from the University of Salford’s Centre for Disaster Resilience.

A consortium of inter-disciplinary and inter-sectorial partners from 64 European higher education institutes, local and national government and international organisations, are working on the project. They are joined by three non-European institutions from Australia, Canada and Sri Lanka. The consortium seeks to promote co-operation and innovation, and increase society’s resilience to disasters of human and natural origin.

The network has set itself challenging, but necessary outcomes, during this ambitious work programme set out over three years. At its heart a virtual network platform will be developed to help manage and coordinate partners. The network will undertake a number of survey exercises aimed at capturing and sharing innovative approaches to inter-disciplinary working, surveying European education to map programmes in disaster resilience, and analysing the capacity of European public administrators to address disaster risk. Special interest groups will be established to address emerging concerns, while an inter-disciplinary doctoral school will help to develop the long term capacity of society to address them. Research and teaching resources that are developing through such activities will be hosted as open education resources, making them freely available outside the network.

The network has close links with the UNISDR and its “making cities resilient: my city is getting ready!” campaign, launched in May 2010. The campaign addresses issues of local governance and urban risk. With the support and recommendation of many partners and participants, and a Mayors statement made during the 2011 global platform for disaster risk reduction, the making cities resilient campaign will carry on beyond 2015.

The campaign will enter its second phase 2012-2015. Based on the success and stock-taking by partners and participating cities in the first phase (2010-2011) the campaign will continue and shift its focus to more implementation support, city-to-city learning and cooperation, local action planning and monitoring of progress in cities.

UNISDR’s interim Director and Manager of making cities resilient, praised the ANDROID project, saying: “UNISDR has taken part in developing the project proposal and now looks forward to disseminating the results when they emerge. Those results will be especially useful in the second phase of our campaign, where we hope to see more city-to-city learning among our campaign cities that leads to laws and other practical measures to build resilience”.

For further information about the ANDROID network, web site at: www.disaster-resilience.net or contact Professor Amaratunga at: r.d.g.amaratunga@salford.ac.uk

Helena Molin ValdesDirector, UNISDR

Note

1. www.unisdr.org/campaign