City-to-City Learning Exchange Programme - Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience Building for Local Governments

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030) emphasizes the necessity to strengthen competencies, management and implementation capacities at different governance levels as a necessary condition to progress in the reduction of disaster risk and associated loss at global, regional, and local level. Specifically recognizing the fundamental role of national and sub-national levels, it emphasizes the necessity to empower local authorities and communities in order to face in an efficient manner, the challenges to sustainable development.

Taking this into account, and given the continuity of actions in the context of Making Cities Resilient, UNISDR continues to support the facilitation of learning exchanges between governments. This initiative integrates lessons learned and experiences gained from exchanges that occurred between governments of various regions on the topic of Disaster Risk Reduction since 2012. Innovation has resulted in particular outputs and/or products on the basis of learning exchanges, converts to direct benefits for local administrations, and to which are both relevant and replicable to other levels. The “Making Cities Resilient: My city is getting ready!” campaign is an invitation to leaders of local governments to reaffirm their commitment to disaster risk reduction and resilience building of their communities.

This City-to-City Learning Exchange will be between the cities of Nacala (Mozambique) and Durban (South Africa).