Advocacy for urban resilience: UNISDR's Making Cities Resilient Campaign

Johnson, C. and Blackburn, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1959-5465 (2014) Advocacy for urban resilience: UNISDR's Making Cities Resilient Campaign. Environment and Urbanization, 26 (1). pp. 29-52. ISSN 1746-0301 doi: 10.1177/0956247813518684

Abstract/Summary

This paper reviews what local governments in more than 50 cities are doing with regard to disaster risk reduction. It draws on the reports of their participation in the global Making Cities Resilient Campaign and its 10 “essential” components, and on interviews with city mayors or managers. These show how resilience to disasters is being conceived and addressed by local governments, especially with regard to changes in their institutional framework and engagement with communities and other stakeholders, also in mobilizing finance, undertaking multi-hazard risk assessments, upgrading informal settlements, adjusting urban planning and implementing building codes. The paper summarizes what city mayors or managers view as key milestones for building resilience, and further discusses their evaluation of the usefulness of the campaign to them. It also discusses how a local government-focused perspective on disaster risk reduction informs our understanding of resilience. This includes how development can contribute much to disaster risk reduction as well as a more tangible and operational understanding of resilience (resistance + coping capacity + recovery + adaptive capacity) that local governments can understand and act on.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/110634
Identification Number/DOI	10.1177/0956247813518684
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	No Reading authors. Back catalogue items Science > School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science > Department of Geography and Environmental Science
Publisher	Sage
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