Training of Trainers on Urban Resilience and Making Cities Resilient (Thailand)

Event Date & Venue

Date: 22-24 March 2023

Venue: UNDRR Global Education and Training Institute (GETI). Incheon, Republic of Korea
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Organizers

• UNDRR Office for Northeast Asia (ONEA) and Global Education and Training Institute (GETI)
• UNDRR Regional Office for Asia-Pacific (ROAP)
• Making Cities Resilient 2030 (MCR2030)

Course Background

Local governments are on the ‘frontline of opportunity’ to reducing impact of disasters – keep people out of poverty; protect hard-earned local development gains; and enable municipalities to become more inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. Challenged by climate emergency, pandemic, and other shocks and stresses, resilience building can no longer be a stand-alone issue and must take into consideration the inter-dependencies between sectors, the interconnectedness of socio-economic factors, and the complexity of hazards. Cities must take a long-term approach to reduce risks and must make resilience building an integral part of urban development.

To support local governments taking this long-term investment on risk reduction and resilience, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) together with 11 Core Partner organizations including UCLG, ICLEI, IFRC, UN-Habitat, UNDP, the World Bank, Resilient Cities Network, have launched the Making Cities Resilient 2030 (MCR2030) , a 10-year global partnership accelerating local resilience.  MCR2030 aims to provide a clear 3-stage Resilience Roadmap guiding cities and municipalities towards taking a long-term and continuous approach to resilience investments, from awareness raising to enhanced strategic planning and taking a whole-of-society approach to implementation. It aims to create access for local governments to many services and expertise available by urban resilience partners globally and serve as a vehicle for localization of national disaster risk reduction and resilience agenda.

As one of the partners in MCR2030, UNDRR is committed to providing support to local governments around the world especially in raising awareness and capacity development. UNDRR has a long track record working with local government through its engagement in the Making Cities Resilient Campaign, the predecessor of MCR2030, since 2010.  The provision of the Ten Essentials for Making Cities Resilient as a 10-point checklist for local governments to kick start disaster and climate resilience journey has been a crucial steppingstone for cities. Accompanied by the Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities, a self-assessment tool, it permits cities to further identify gaps and discover impactful resilience actions, contributing directly to the achievement of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and other global frameworks including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Paris Agreement.

In November 2022, UNDRR partnered with the Thailand Network for Disaster Resilience (TNDR) and organized a training of trainers on urban resilience and making cities resilient in Bangkok, Thailand.  The training benefited 45 representatives from 17 universities from TNDR and 3 mayors from municipalities engaging in the SDG localization project by UNDP Thailand, as well as observers from the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation, Asian Disaster Preparedness Center, Nation TV and the Army training department.  As a result of this training and follow-up discussions, 3 Thai municipalities joined MCR2030 network with many universities already initiated the integration of urban risk reduction in their academic curriculum and/or fostered partnership with local authorities for technical support on resilience. In addition, the Ten Essentials for Making Cities Resilient is integrated as part of the new National Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Plan, launched in January 2023, as a strategic framework for localizing national disaster risk reduction strategy.  
 

Course Objective

This course is built on the progressing track record and interests of key stakeholders in Thailand. It aims to:

a) Develop a trained cadre of experts and build knowledge and capacities of key stakeholders on sub-national disaster risk reduction and resilience
b) Provide approaches and tools to further support resilience building and multi-stakeholder engagement at the local level, particularly the use of the Ten Essentials for Making Cities Resilient and the Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities
c) Facilitate inter-agency and inter-governmental discussion and set a foundation on urban resilience programme in Thailand
d) Foster experience sharing and exchange among participating municipalities and good practices from Incheon Metropolitan City, the first Resilience Hub of MCR2030 in Asia-Pacific

Expected learning outcome:

• Municipalities and organizations participating in this training officially enrolled as members of MCR2030
• Municipalities conduct self-assessment using the Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities upon returning to the country and use the assessment results to plan for subsequent actions to reduce risks and build resilience
• National government agencies integrate urban resilience as part of the organization’s priorities and utilize MCR2030 network to support the implementation of the national disaster and climate resilience strategy
• All trained trainers replicate the knowledge and experience with others and continue to positively influence other municipalities becoming committed to building long-term resilience
• A network supporting local resilience in Thailand established to foster city-to-city exchange and peer-to-peer learning across municipalities and all levels of governance from the national to local levels