Building Local Resilience Platforms for Disaster Risk Reduction

Abstract

As local communities are disproportionately impacted by disasters, there is an urgent need for multi-stakeholder platforms at the local level that can bring together knowledge and resources for resilience-building. Tackling challenges such as low governance capacity, lack of data and resources, and lack of community awareness requires building local platforms for disaster risk reduction (DRR), harnessing local academia, and developing local action plans through an inclusive approach. The proposed platform would enable an institutionalised scientific and participatory approach to resilience building through a science–policy interface at a local level. Recommendations: • Establish local platforms for direct engagement in DRR • Harness and directly engage with local universities as generators and disseminators of DRR knowledge • Promote inclusivity in building local disaster resilience