Workshop on Making Cities Resilient: Towards developing local disaster risk reduction strategy

Background and Introduction

The Government of Dubai has committed to making Dubai disaster resilient. On 2-3 September, the initial capacity building workshop was held in Dubai with multi-sectoral department participation.  During this workshop, Dubai government officials were oriented with disaster risk reduction (DRR) concept including key terminologies, the linkage of DRR and climate change and sustainable development, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Making Cities Resilient campaign and the 10 Essentials for making cities resilient.  Moreover, the participants practiced using Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities in assessing the current progress in disaster resilience building in Dubai. This exercise continued post-workshop with the aim of using the Scorecard results as inputs to the development of DRR strategies. 

Workshop Objectives

Follow-on with this commitment, the second workshop is planned to be held in Dubai with an aim to guide the development of an evidence based local DRR strategy that reflects the current local needs and gaps and is aligned with the global frameworks including the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, Paris Agreement, New Urban Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals. The workshop will also be an opportunity to review the state of play of Dubai in DRR, climate change adaptation and urban development and review the result of the Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities assessment for DRR strategic planning.

Expected Outcome

It is expected that the trained cadres of local government officials will be equipped with knowledge and skills in DRR strategic planning for the Government of Dubai to have DRR strategy in place for implementation before 2020.