THE UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) has launched a new initiative to support cities around the world to manage risk following the worst year on record for economic losses from disasters. It also announced that over 1,000 cities have now joined its 'Making Cities Resilient' Campaign.Campaign Director, Helena Molin Valds, said: 'Cities and towns are on the frontline of disaster risk reduction and bore the brunt of insured economic losses from disasters last year of $380 billion. We are launching a new online Local Government Self-Assessment Tool as part of our global 'Making Cities Resilient' campaign to allow cities to establish baselines, identify planning and investment gaps for risk reduction and climate change adaptation.'She said that the new local government tool would greatly enrich understanding of the challenges ahead as the world starts to think about a new blueprint for disaster risk reduction once the existing plan, the Hyogo Framework for Action, expires in 2015. To date, 133 countries have been reporting at the national level on their progress against the priorities agreed on in the Hyogo Framework. The new local government tool would enable city governments to submit data for national progress reports, for the first time.The tool has been tested in over 20 cities around the world, including the Philippines city of Quezon, which held five consultative workshops with a variety of stakeholders over the course of 2011. 'Critical to this process is the identification of stakeholders that will participate as the ultimate goal is to provide a comprehensive rating of the city's performance,' said Quezon Mayor, Herbert M. Bautista.The 'Making Cities Resilient' Campaign is creating an ever-widening network of alliances for disaster risk reduction. There are currently 25 partners working with UNISDR to support the Campaign including Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI) with a membership of over 1,200 cities, towns, counties, and their associations worldwide; UN-HABITAT/UNICEF with the Child Friendly Cities Initiative (CFCI) and HABITAT's World Urban Campaign for Resilient Cities; United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG): as well as Cisco whose Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) works with the global public sector on resilient cities.Meanwhile, inspired by UNISDR's flagship 'Making Cities Resilient' campaign, the European Commission's Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency is to boost disaster preparedness in European cities by turning higher education institutes into 'reliable partners to reduce society's vulnerability to hazards.'The newly-funded '790,000 project, called the Academic Network for Disaster Resilience to Optimise Educational Development (ANDROID), will run for three years and is led by two experts from the University of Salford in the United Kingdom ' Dilanthi Amaratunga, head of the school's Centre for Disaster Resilience, and Richard Haigh, Director of the Centre's Disaster Mitigation and Reconstruction programme.Mr. Haigh said the proposal for ANDROID emerged because the Centre believed European society needed a better understanding of how to respond to disruptive events.He said: 'The complex nature of disasters has led to recognition that risk reduction through increased resilience will require a strategy that is inter-disciplinary. True inter-disciplinarity only occurs where a number of separate disciplines surrender their own concepts and goals, and collectively define themselves by reference to a common set of strategic concepts and goals.'A consortium of partners from 64 European higher education institutes, local and national government and international organisations, embarked on the project last month and they will be joined by three non-European institutions from Australia, Canada and Sri Lanka.Ms. Amaratunga who is also an advisor to UNISDR's 'Making Cities Resilient' Campaign, said: 'There is now recognition of the need for multi-actor engagement. ANDROID is based on an inter-disciplinary consortium of partners that comprises scientists from applied human, social and natural disciplines. Addressing disaster risk is an endless or continuous process that cannot stop.'Helena Molin Valdes, UNISDR's interim Director and manager of Making Cities Resilient, praised the University of Salford project, saying: 'UNISDR has taken part in developing the project proposal and now looks forward to disseminating the results when they emerge. Those results will be especially useful in the second phase of our campaign, where we hope to see more city-to-city learning among our campaign cities that leads to laws and other practical measures to build resilience.'The 'Making Cities Resilient' Campaign now has almost 1,000 members. ANDROID is expected to feed into this phase of the Cities' Campaign by building the link between research institutions and society. Ms. Amaratunga and Mr. Haigh expect the consortium partners to describe, analyse, and to compare the capacity of European cities and higher education institutions to address disaster risk, thereby helping to reinforce the links between education and society.UNISDR is the UN office dedicated to disaster risk reduction. It is led by the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Disaster Risk Reduction and supports implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters which seeks 'the substantial reduction of disaster losses, in lives and in the social, economic and environmental assets of communities and countries.
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