Experience Sharing Workshop: Making Cities Sustainable and Resilient in Asia and Pacific

Background

“Making cities sustainable and resilient: implementing the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 at the local level” is a three-year initiative by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR)and United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), supported by the European Commission, to support local governments in reducing disaster risks and addressing challenges for sustainable development. Under this initiative, UNISDR and its partners have been working with 20 high risk cities globally to strengthen capacities to develop and initiate the implementation of disaster risk reduction and resilience plans.  Among these, 6 cities are from Asia and Pacific: Honiara, Solomon Islands; Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Kathmandu City, Nepal; Dhaka North City Cooperation, Bangladesh; Cilacap Regency, Indonesia; and Mawlamyine, Myanmar.

Capacity of beneficiary cities and key stakeholders is instrumental to the success of this initiative.  In January 2018, a Training of Trainers on “Making Cities Resilient: Developing and Implementing Disaster Risk Reduction Action Plans” was held with participation of 20 beneficiary cities and implementing partners at UNISDR-GETI in Incheon, Republic of Korea.  The workshop not only provided fundamental knowledge on disaster risk reduction (DRR) and sustainable development, but also helped equip city officials with tools in self-assessing the disaster resilience building progress and developing DRR and resilience action plans. It was recognized that networking among beneficiary cities, partners and stakeholders was strengthened and the discussion contributed to enhanced learning and commitment to disaster resilience.

To strengthen the regional network and learn from the experiences of cities in the regions, a series of regional workshops will be conducted.  The “Experience Sharing Workshop: Making Cities Sustainable and Resilient in Asia and Pacific” will be held on 2 July 2018 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, as a pre-event of the Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (AMCDRR).

Objectives

This workshop will be a platform for beneficiary cities and partners to:

• Share experience and progress in applying the Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities, convening multi-stakeholder consultations and conducting self-assessment on disaster resilience in the cities
• Provide updates on the development of DRR action plans
• Strengthen regional network and peer-to-peer learning.

Expected Outcomes

• Review of progress in implementing the Disaster Resilience Scorecard and development DRR action plans
• Lessons and best practices shared
• Networking among cities, partners and stakeholder strengthened